
Class 
Book 







US' 



THE 




SPIRIT OF GERMAN POETRY: 



Sbertes of translations from t&c fficrman piets, 



CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



BY JOSEPH GOSTICK, 



AUTHOR OF " HENRY HOMEWARD, ETC. 



/?<sy 



{ ^iiBKAnv; ; 




LONDON: 
WILLIAM SMITH, 113, FLEET STREET. 



MDCCCXLV. 



> 



SIH EDWAED BULWEK LYTTON, BART. ; 



IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction 



page 
. 1 



CHAPTER I. 

Earliest Notice of German Poetry. — Fall of the 
Roman Empire. — The Institution of Chivalry. 
— The Minnesingers. — The Niebelungen-lied. 
— Decline of the Minstrelsy of Chivalry. — 
Growth of a Rude Popular Poetry . . .. 4 

CHAPTER II. 
The Niebelungen-lied ..... 7 

CHAPTER III. 

Popular Satires. — Ulrich von Hutten. — Hans 
Sachs. — The Drama. — Opitz. — The " German 
Palm-tree" Society. — The Eighteenth Cen- 
tury. — Mediocrities. — The Halberstadt School. 
— Bodmer. — Klopstock. — Gleim. — Wieland. 
— Lessing. — Herder. — Burger. — Jean Paul 
Richter. — Kotzebue. — Schiller. — Goethe . . 11 



CHAPTER IV. 

Goethe — 

The Castle on the Hill . 
The King in Thule . 
Prologue-Song . . - 

CHAPTER V. 

Goethe's Torquato Tasso 

CHAPTER VI. 

Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea 

CHAPTER VII. 
minor poets. 

Neuffer — 

The Absent Wife 
Neubeck — 

A Spring Evening . 
Schubart — 

The Vault of the Princes 
Louise Brachmann — 

The Night in the Mill 

Consolation for Absence 
Christian and Frederick Stolberg- 

Thanksgiving Song 



22 



35 



Gleim — 

Song ..... 

The Star-gazer .... 
Ernst Schulze .... 
Voss — 

The Festival in the Wood 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Schiller — 

The Moral Poet . . . . 
The Sublime Theme 
Science ..... 
Kant and his Commentators 
The Diver, a Ballad . 
The Knight of Toggenburg 
The Fight with the Dragon . 
The Cranes of Ibycus 
The Lay of the Bell . 

CHAPTER IX. 

uhland and other poets. 
Uhland 

The Minstrel's Curse 

The Wreath 

The Serenade 

Song 

The Castle on the Shore 

The Lost Church 

Harald . 

Young Roland . 
Gustavus Schwab . 
Gustavus Pfitzer — 

The Garden by the Churchyard 

The Angel of Pity 

JUSTINUS KERNER 

The Water-Sprite . 

ZlMMERMANN 

Count Eberhard 
Julius Mosen — 

The Trumpeter at Katzbach 
Reinick — 

The Return 
Halirsch 

The Watchman on the Tower 

The Wandering Musician 
Max von Oer — 

The Forget-me-not . 
Stober — 

St. Cecilia .... 
Eichendorff — 

The Still Ground . 

The Priest and the Jacobin . 



PAGE 

54 
, 55 
, 55 

57 



67 
67 
67 
67 
69 
71 
72 
75 
77 



82 
83 
83 
83 
84 
84 
84 
85 
86 

86 

87 

87 
87 



88 

88 
89 

89 

90 

90 
90 



iv 


CONTENTS. 






PAGE 


Deeg — 


PAGE 


CHAPTER X. 




Childhood 


112 






Sonnet ....*. 


112 


KORNER HEINE GRABBE CHAMISSO GAUDY. 






Theodore Korner — 




CHAPTER XII. 




Liitzow's Wild Chase 


92 


Freiligrath — 




Heine— 




Vision of Travellers in the Desert . . 


112 


The Grenadiers ..... 


92 


The Lion's Ride .... 


113 


The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar 


93 


A Sea Adventure .... 


113 


The Preacher's Family 


93 


German Emigrants 


114 


Grabbb ...... 


94 


The Burial of the Bandit . 


114 


Adalbert von Chamisso — 




A Scene at Congo . 


115 


The Dying Lady .... 


94 


The Pictured Bible .... 


. 116 


Duke Huldreich and Beatrice 


95 


The Revenge of the Flowers . 


116 


The Widow's Prayer 


95 


Death of the Emigrant-Leader . 

The Mirage 

African Loyalty 


. 117 


The Journeyman's Return . 


9H 


. 118 


The Thunder-storm 


96 


. 118 


Gaudy — 

The Cook's Elegy .... 


97 


The Negro-prince. A Ballad . 
Mount Nebo 


. 118 
119 






In the Wood ..... 


120 


CHAPTER XL 




The Waker in the Wilderness 


120 






To the Sea . 


121 


RUCKERT PLATEN LENAU GEIBEL DEE 


G. 


The Emigrant Poet .... 


122 


RlJCKERT 




On a Glorious Eve of Whitsuntide . 


123 


A Poet's Utopia .... 


97 


Moss-tea ...... 


123 


Song ...... 


98 


The Conversation of the Ships 


123 


The Poet's Life .... 


98 








98 


CHAPTER XIII. 




Platen — 








Luca Signorelli .... 


99 


Anastasius Grun — 




The Pilgrim of St. Just . 


100 


The Poetry of Steam 


125 


The Burial at St. Just . . . 


100 


The Tea-plant 


126 


The Vision of Charles the Fifth . 


101 


The dying Comedian 


126 


Naples ...... 


101 


The Unknown ..... 


127 


The Fisher-maid of Burano 


102 


The Deserter .... 


127 


Harmosan ..... 


103 


The old Soldier 


128 


Philemon's Death .... 


103 


The Penitent .... 


128 


An Invitation to Sorrento 


103 


The Churchyard amid the Mountains . 


129 


Florence 


104 


The Muse called to Judgment 


129 


The Pyramid of Cestius . 


104 


The Shell and the Kernel . 


129 


Misanthropy ..... 


105 


The last Poet . 


130 


The Better Part .... 


105 






Brunelleschi . . . 


105 


CHAPTER XIV. 




To Marco Saracini .... 


105 






To the Countess Pieri in Sienna 


106 


DIDACTIC POETRY. 




Vesuvius . . . . . 


106 


Leopold Schefer . , . . 


130 


Lenau — 








The Death of Spring 


106 


CONCLUSION. 




Autumn ...... 

The Postillion .... 

The Post-horn 

Emanuel Geibel — 

Spring's Revelation 

Song ...... 

The Haunted Castle 


106 

107 
107 

108 
108 
108 


Edmund and Ursula .... 
Margaret and the Student 

Light for All 

Among the Coal-mines of Durham 
The Poet's Task .... 


133 
135 
136 

137 
137 


"Let not the Sun go down upon youi 

Wrath" ' 

On the last Day of Autumn . 


137 
137 


A Song of Similes .... 

Song ...... 

" Onward "..... 

Moonlight Fancies .... 

On the Water ..... 

" Oh, cast no more those smiles on me !" 


109 
109 
109 
110 
110 
110 


The Third Thought the Best 

The Valley of the Spell . ... 

The Lady and the River . 

The Land of Rest . . . . 


138 
138 
138 
139 


Three Wishes ..... 


110 






Autumnal Feeling .... 




CHILDREN'S POETRY. 




The Dying Swan .... 


110 


" Behold the Fowls of the Air " . 


139 


Sonnet ...... 


111 


Honesty . 


139 


Silent Love ..... 


111 


The Apple-tree 


139 


Song 


. Ill 


Longing for Spring 


140 


Sonnet ...... 


111 


Contentment . . • • • • 


140 


The King's Beard .... 


. Ill 


Music for the Dying . . • • 


140 



THE 



SPIRIT OF GERMAN POETRY. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The literary intercourse between the English and 
the Germans, which has lately advanced so rapidly, 
is still desirable ; for its growth will be rich in 
results for the future. Many errors will, naturally, 
attend the formation of this friendship ; but in the 
end, it is to be hoped, the two nations will learn to 
appreciate justly the good points in each other's 
character. Weak and slavish admiration or imita- 
tion is not the true way of promoting this inter- 
course. It is not desirable that the Englishman 
should imitate those qualities of the German mind 
which degenerate into love of vague speculation, 
sentimentality and mysticism ; nor that the Ger- 
man should become infected with the coarse, 
satiric humour, and the artificial hardness of cha- 
racter which mar the good qualities of the English 
heart and intellect. Each may learn something 
from the other ; but let them not (as boys are apt 
to do at school) learn each other's faults. 

Poetry, though its region is not confined to the real, 
reveals, in its general progress and characteristics, 
the features of the national mind from which it 
sprung. Believing this, we have sought, in the 
following selections, to make the English reader 
acquainted with the peculiarities of the German 
mind as revealed in its poetry. A fair analysis 
of the productions either of a nation or of an indi- 
vidual author, truly showing what has been done, 
is better than vague admiration or indiscriminate 
censure. We neither agree with those who have 
ranked Goethe with Shakspeare and classified 
" Faust " with " Othello," nor with those who have 
styled Goethe " the master of humbug," and con- 
demned German poetry altogether as mystical, 
puerile and sentimental. 

The very light reader, who requires mere amuse- 
ment, will seek to have his present tastes and 



sympathies gratified ; but he who reads with a 
higher purpose will seek to enlarge his sympathies 
by an acquaintance with the literature of other 
countries. We would serve the latter purpose in 
giving the " Spirit of German Poetry ;" and there- 
fore, we have not selected merely such productions 
as are most accordant with the English taste, but 
such as truly exemplify the character of German 
poetical literature. If we seek for Shakspeare's 
dramatic vigour and variety, for Milton's grandeur 
of imagination, or for Byron's gloom and passion, 
we can find them at home. 

To state, in limine, our general estimate of Ger- 
man poetry — it seems to us that nothing but the 
vague admiration of a tyro could compare its trea- 
sures with our own poetical wealth. There never 
was a Shakspeare in Germany, nor a Milton, nor 
even a Byron — nay we know not where to find even 
a German Cowper, and for a meditative poet with 
the still depth of Wordsworth we seek in vain in 
the land of transcendental philosophy. 

But why should we go abroad for the qualities 
which we have at home ? German poetry has its 
peculiar beauties, and of these we present some 
fair specimens to English readers. The German 
poetical world lies in a smaller compass than our 
own (we speak not of the number of poets but of the 
range of ideas) — it has its land of dreams, its elfin- 
land, another territory haunted by brave knights and 
beautiful dames in the costume of the middle ages, 
and still another, better land of domestic bowers, 
fond husbands and wives, gardens, flowers and chil- 
dren ; but the German poet is not the man to ven- 
ture through Chaos and settle in Paradise, with 
Milton, nor to reproduce that old dramatic world in 
which lived " Hamlet " the Dane. But let us cease 
speaking negatively. One of the most amiable cha- 



INTRODUCTION. 



r 



racteristics of German poetry is in its celebration 
of the domestic affections, Goethe has given us a 
domestic epic in his " Hermann and Dorothea," 
and Voss, in his " Luise " has produced a popular 
Idyl on the espousals of a country parson's daughter. 
Even Freiligrath softens the music of his verse 
when he sings of " the old pictured bible " in his 
father's house. Songs exhorting to contentment 
with home, and the common, quiet pleasures of 
e very-day life, are very numerous in German litera- 
ture. We are not sure that our English contempt 
for such soothing little poems is a good symptom 
of the national mind ; but German poetry, cer- 
tainly, gives us rather too many sugared cates. 

Not many years ago, Germany was chiefly 
known among us as the land of " a Goblin litera- 
ture," and still ghosts are plentiful enough in its 
imaginative productions, as if they sought a hiding- 
place from the weapons of the rationalists in the 
arms of the poets. 

It may seem strange that a homely people whose 
poetry, sometimes, celebrates the comfortable and 
describes the composition of a salad, should also be 
notable for their tales of diablerie, goblins, gnomes, 
and elfin-land ; but so it is. Of stories full of 
these supernatural agencies, the English reader may 
find good specimens in translations from Tieck 
and Fouque ; but they are not likely to attain 
here the popularity which they have won in Ger- 
many. The most popular of goblins is Rubezahl, 
a fine fellow in his way, a great humourist, and a 
stout friend of the poor, who frequents the Hartz 
mountains, whence he sometimes descends to play 
a part in the concerns of human life, to see some 
peasant restored to his rights, or to be hanged 
instead of some unfortunate wight, as Musaeus has 
amusingly narrated in one of his stories. 

A remarkable trait hi German poetry is the 
frequent want of good taste, an offence against that 
English reserve which avoids the too common or 
expression of sentimental piety or 



other feelings. A German writer* amusingly 
apologises for this failing — "Religion," says he, 
"is, among the English, an affair of churches, 
Sundays, and a few other festivals : — with us it 
flows through all our thoughts and pervades our 
literature : — this may be the reason why we employ 
the divine name too freely, or with a seeming irre- 
verence." The expressions, "lieber GotV and 
"Meier Christ" so common among the German 
people, are fair instances of this fault. 

Of the mysticism of Germany both good and evil 
may be said. It may sometimes enfold within its 



* Kohl's " Land and People of the British Islands "— 
quoted from memory. 



cloudy veil a sublime truth ; it may soften the 
heart with emotions of awe and wonder ; but the 
vagueness of the intellect may be communicated 
to the moral feelings, and lead the mind to mistake 
sentiments of mystical devotion and sympathy with 
nature as substitutes for sound andjpractical human 
virtues. This is a mistake to which the poetical 
temperament generally, and especially that of the 
German, is prone. 

Every one who has endeavoured to give ah 
English dress to German poems, or to make intelli- 
gible to English readers a story from Jean Paul 
Richter, must know the difficulty of finding plain 
English for thoughts and images that frequently 
glimmer on the confines of total obscurity. 

A whole literature is not to be rejected for this 
fault ; but it is one so closely inwoven with the 
majority of German works of imagination as to 
present serious difficulties to the translator. ^__ 

He who would understand well the spirit of 
German poetry should have some acquaintance 
with the music of Germany. If he has spent an 
evening in the twilight of some old Lutheran 
Church, listening to the sublime and mysterious 
fugue-music of Bach or Rinck, poured forth from 
the organ ; in the mysterious modulations of chro- 
matic chords, so remote from the few plain har- 
monies upon which our popular minstrelsy and 
psalmody is founded, and in the frequent recur- 
rence of peculiar and undefinably sweet effects, 
not without a tinge of monotony, he will recognise 
the vague thoughts, the yearning feelings, and the 
frequent iteration of favourite images which are 
characteristic of German poetry. 

To appreciate German poetry, it is, happily, not 
necessary to understand its accompanying philoso- 
phy ; but, vice versa, some fight may be thrown on 
the character and tendency of German speculation 
by poetry. This is, by no means, such a myste- 
rious matter as some have made it appear. How- 
ever vague and abstruse the reasonings of the 
schools which have prevailed in the German 
universities may seem, the results at which they 
aim are plain enough. Let none dread a second 
French revolution from German doctrines. With 
all his mysticism the German carries into his 
philosophy the same love of the homely, the quiet 
and the comfortable, which marks his poetry. In 
his songs and in his lectures he dreams of making 
a heaven of earth. 

What was Kant's philosophy, with all its seeming 
abstruseness, but an endeavour to show the vanity 
of remote speculation, and so bring the mind home 
to the practical limits of human fife ? And what 
was Goethe but Kant, with a poet's imagination 1_ 

One of the causes of poverty in German poetry 



INTRODUCTION. 



may be found in the monotony of old habits of life 
in Germany, which still remains, in many places, 
unbroken. Even towns and cities in that country, 
compared with our great Babel and its ceaseless 
bustle, are quiet haunts for meditation. German 
scenery, too, seldom comprises, within the same 
extent, the variety which may be found in the 
picturesque districts of England. Instead of our 
lakes of all hues, with banks of every green and 
rich variety of forest- trees, only the black fir-wood 
spreads its gloom over many tracts of Germany. 
As the peasant amid the fir-forests of Northern 
Russia, monotonous as the scene around him in 
all his ideas and in his round of religious ceremo- 
nies, beguiles the long, shadeless summer with the 
drowsy tones of his harmonica ; so the German's 
temperament is unconsciously influenced by 

The sleep that is among the lonely hills, 

or, we should rather say, the plains of his father- 
land. 

Nothing could exceed the monotony of old 
German fife. Goethe tells us, of his grandfather, 
" In his room I never saw a novelty. I recollect 
no form of existence that ever gave me, to such a 
degree, the feeling of unbroken calm and perpe- 
tuity." From the bosom of such a calm, which 
would be like death to an Englishman, poetical 
genius has been unfolded. 

Still, in many parts of Germany, old institutions 
and usages tell of the conservative spirit which 
would hold the world to the fashion of five hun- 
dred years ago, and present as realities those relics 
of ancient time which, amid our bustling English 
life, are forgotten like dreams in the hurry of 
the day. Artillery and military music announce 
Christmas morn, and, in the pauses of ringing 
bells, the harmonious voices of choristers are 
heard blending in the old Lutheran hymn. Then 
comes the excitement of Christmas, looked forward 
to through many months of domestic monotony : 
the old, traditional Christmas-tree is laden with pre- 
sents for good children ; the traditional angel comes 
to give needful advice and correction ; and the old 
traditional fibs are told to make the children good. 

One of the causes of Freiligrath's popularity, no 
doubt, has been his breaking through the narrow 
boundaries in which German poetry had been con- 
fined and refreshing the imaginations of his readers 
with new scenes from life and nature in foreign 
lands. The young poets of the present day are 
evidently tired of the old topics of poetry, and 
seeking for a new interest to animate their strains. 
This interest they imagine they have found in 



pohtics ; but here, we think, they have made a 
mistake. It is a truly popular, not a political 
poetry, that is wanted in the present day — a poetry 
of workshops, fields, mines and cottages of the 
poor, rather than of parliaments and courts. Let 
the young poets of Germany take a hint from the 
interest with which old popular legends are studied 
even in the present day. 

The graphic narrative of the old " Niebelungen- 
lied" is read with interest, despite its poverty of 
sentiment, and great industry is employed in 
collecting and reproducing the old legends of the 
Minnesingers and their times. Now if some poring 
book-worm could discover, among old-world re- 
cords, the MS. of some pilgrim-minstrel, telling, 
particularly and graphically, in language however 
rude, the very fives and manners of the people, 
from the gay court to the mud-built cottage, in all 
the lands through which he travelled, how great 
would be the pleasure not only of antiquaries but 
of general readers ! In some old books of travels 
or history how we are disappointed when we look 
for accounts of life in ancient times and find only 
records of visits to courts monotonously gay, or 
pilgrimages to shrines where the dry bones of saints 
were preserved ! Let poets who wish to be known 
to posterity take care that they do not cause a 
similar disappointment. The same feeling of 
curiosity will exist five hundred years hence, and 
readers will then turn away from endless addresses 
to " Laura," " liberty," and the " moon," to seek 
for the poet who will tell how the German people 
were living and what they were doing in the nine- 
teenth century. That which is common-place 
when near becomes poetry in the distance ; and 
this is true of place as well as of time : — to us a 
story of the peasantry of Suabia or the poor 
weavers of Silesia is poetry. If human fife any- 
where seems prosaic, it must be because it is re- 
garded in a one-sided view. 

In a work like the present, which has no pre- 
tension as a historical or critical production, it is 
hardly necessary to cite authorities for the bio- 
graphical sketches introduced. 
, The name of Gervinus, however, may be men- 
tioned, from whose writings the historical state- 
ments of the first chapter have been borrowed. . 

In the following translations our first endeavour 
has been to preserve faithfulness to the spirit of 
the original poems. 

In the very few instances where the translations 
given are not original their sources are acknow- 
ledged. 



b2 



V 



sOM 



APTER I. 



Contents.-— Earliest Notice of German Poetry Fall of 

the Roman Empire. —The Institution of Chivalry.— The 
Minnesingers.— The Niebelungen-lied.— Decline of the 
Minstrelsy of Chivalry — Growth of a Rude, Popular 
Poetry. 

The earliest notice of German poetry, if we may 
dignify by that name the productions of a barba- 
rous age, is to be found in Tacitus. He tells us 
nothing more than what we might imagine for 
ourselves ; — that the poetry of the warlike German 
tribes was confined to battle-songs and historical 
ballads. At a later period, the popular minstrels 
seem to have assumed the office of the genealogist. 
But the imagination of the reader, guided by the 
accounts which history gives of the formidable 
tribes which burst upon the civilised world in the 
decline of the Roman Empire, must supply the 
want of specific information respecting early Ger- 
man minstrelsy. The Romans who, even in the 
time of Cicero, had forgotten their own early popu- 
lar ballads, were not likely to be very curious 
about those of the Germans. The tribes known 
by this name had no priestly caste, like the Druids 
of the Celtic race, devoted to poetry ; but seem to 
have left the art to instinct awakened by warlike 
occasions, and, no doubt, their productions were 
wild and savage as the northern forests amid which 
they had their origin. Next to Tacitus, Jornandes, 
a writer of the sixth century, mentions the ballads 
of the Germans ; and, two centuries later, Paul 
wrote his history of the Longobards from popular 
legends ; but neither of these writers supplies any 
information of a certain and specific character. 
Amid the vast and numerous migrations of these 
enterprising tribes, their oral legends were, of 
course, intermingled : the Anglo-Saxons, for in- 
stance, learned the Gothic legend of " Hermanrich," 
and the Nordlanders acquired from the Franks 
the tale of Siegfried. Thus, removed from their 
native soil, these old chronicles lost their original 
forms and suffered many strange intermixtures of 
materials. The incursions of these northern bar- 
barians into the civilised world presented to them 
vast contrasts to the home-scenes sung by the bards 
of their tribes. They could find no words for the 
wonders of novelty and magnificence displayed 
around them. The savage poets were overcome 
with the abundance of new materials. The hand 
of the warrior outstripped the lay of the minstrel. 
He who had celebrated the meaner victories of his 
tribe could find no triumphal song worthy of the 
conquest of once imperial Rome. Attila pro- 
ceeded on his career more like an Oriental despot 
than an old German Chieftain. Popular interest 
was now withdrawn from the old legends and new 
events presented themselves, too vast and wonder- 
ful to be comprehended by the genius of the people 
who produced them. Their poetry was unequal to 
the vast drama of actual life presented in the 
revolution of the civilised world, in which they 
were called to be actors, though they could not 
understand its plot. The few superior minds who 
could comprehend anything of the meaning of such 
events as surrounded them were, of course, in 
favour of Roman and Christian civilisation, and 
despised the legendary relics of northern barba- 
rism. Neglecting their vernacular dialects and 



the records contained in them, they wrote the his- 
tories of their tribes in Latin, and, frequently, in a 
merely ecclesiastical point of view. Thus the popu- 
lar legends were left in the care of the rude people, 
and, no doubt, suffered considerable alterations in 
their hands. The clergy, of course, had no interest 
in the preservation of the relics of a warlike 
paganism ; but endeavoured to supply their place 
in the popular mind with Christian narratives. 
With this design the valuable Gothic version of the 
Bible was made by Bishop Ulfila, who omitted the 
books of Kings, fearing lest they might present 
materials too tempting to the martial genius of the 
people. This translation of the Christian Scrip- 
tures into the popular tongue awakened among the 
clergy some interest in those old legends which 
supplied them with models of vernacular phrase- 
ology ; and though the monks, in their first zeal 
for the conversion of the people, had destroyed, as 
far as they could, all legendary recollections of the 
old savage life, afterwards, when Christianity was 
more firmly established and no longer dreaded the 
excitement that might be raised by a rude old bal- 
lad, they even blended together the remains of old 
German legends with Christian traditions. In the 
" Kaiser-Chronik," composed towards the close of 
the twelfth century, we have legends of the martyrs, 
Peter, Paul, John, Veronica, Clemens, and others, 
full of the wonders of Christian heroism, taking the 
places of the terrible warriors in the old ballads. 
Foreign traditions were mixed with the old materials 
of the popular poetry ; sacred and profane stories 
were often strangely blended together. 

This curious confusion of elements, in which we 
find the meek spirit emanating from the few lowly 
disciples by the Lake of Gennesaret associated 
with the stern genius of the northern forests and 
their warlike tribes, prepared the way for the 
institution of chivalry and its accompanying school 
of poetry. The old German spirit supplied the 
lance, the sword, and the thirst for warlike achieve- 
ments, while the Christian spirit tempered these 
remnants of ancient rudeness with something of 
humanity and all the exterior courtesies and graces 
necessary to make up the character of the gentle 
and courageous knight. The crusades interrupted 
the monotony of a course of life devoid of all great 
events with their sudden enthusiasm, for which the 
minds of the people had been ripening. They 
longed to express their new sentiments and to 
assert their new faith in the old style, by warlike 
feats, and thus to reconcile their Christian belief 
with their military spirit. They blended their old, 
ancestral heroism with the legends of the martyrs, 
and turned the animosity which had displayed 
itself in the feuds of their various tribes against 
the unbelieving heathen. This new institution of 
chivalry abolished the fierce egotism of the ancient 
heroes : through the sermons of the monks and 
the legends of the knights of this time, we find pre- 
vailing an abhorrence of violence and rapacity. 
The Christian warrior chose for his guardian angel, 
not the old war-god of his ancestors, but the gentle 
Virgin Mary, and devoted his weapons to the ser- 
vice of distressed widows and orphans, while his 
heart was swayed no longer by mere vengeance 
and ambition, but by a constant devotion to his 
elected lady— the queen of his soul. 

This chivalrous spirit pervaded all the poetry of 
the French, of which Charles the Great was the 



CHIVALRY. 



principal hero. The legend of Charles became the 
centre of all the romantic poetry of the age, and 
clothed itself in a Christian dress to suit the enthu- 
siasm of the times. Opposed to this new school of 
poetry, the legends of the Trojan war and of Alex- 
ander's victories which, mingled with oriental and 
Byzantine romances, had been spread among the 
people, possessed only a fading interest, as the 
mere physical bravery and egotistic ambition of the 
heathen heroes was no longer in accordance with 
the elevated and, in some degree, Christianised 
genius of the age. 

Amid these foreign productions, the old heroic 
German poetry was nearly forgotten. Still some 
relics of the wild legend of Dietrich survived 
among the people, and Germany was unwilling to 
let its old records of the heroic age pass away 
without an effort to reconstruct them and set them 
in rivalry against the rising school of poetry. The 
stern spirit of the North, embodied in the old 
legends, opposed itself to the gentle and semi- 
Christian school of knighthood, and brought for- 
ward, in contrast to the milder poetry of chivalry, 
the wild and wondrous " Niebelungen-lied." Of 
this remarkable old German poem we shall say 
something more in a subsequent chapter. Even 
in the thirteenth century this stern old epic 
remained as something of a terror to the prevailing 
courtly minstrels who 

Sang war and ladies' love, 
Romance and knightly worth. 

How this formidable epic of the old sanguinary 
times was compiled, we are unable to discover ; 
but of the value of the poem we form a judgment 
widely different from that of the courtly and 
ecclesiastical minstrels who opposed it. It even 
approaches the epic models of antiquity in its pure 
narrative character and vigour of imagination. 
But, with all its powerful descriptions and vivid 
recollections of the ancient heroic age, it found no 
general interest in the twelfth century, when new 
ideas were unfolding themselves, and was com- 
pelled to step back and yield the palm to the school 
of chivalry, whose minstrelsy ruled the times. This 
school of poetry was soon enriched by the British 
legends of Prince Arthur and his " Round Table," 
which accorded well with the sentiments of the 
knightly minstrels in an age when the thoughts 
which now only occupy the mind of romantic 
youth found a place in the faith of serious and 
steel-clad warriors. Poetry was now removed 
from the superintendence of the clergy, and consi- 
dered as one of the ornaments of knighthood. 

The crusaders sang of the conquest of Jerusalem 
in their vernacular tongue, and new wonders of 
heroism displaced the old legends of the Church 
and Roman antiquity. Minstrelsy, translated from 
the cell to the court, became accustomed to receive 
honours from the hands of princes, and won the 
favour of the brightest ladies : — 

In days of yore how fortunately fared 

The minstrel, wandering on from court to court, 

Baronial hall or royal ! 

The rivalry of the Austrian and Thuringian 
courts for the protection of poetry, has been cele- 
brated in the songs of their favoured minstrels. 
Of this great revolution in the fortunes of " the art 
unteachable," Henry op Veldeke may be regarded 
as one of the chief promoters. His successors 



looked back upon him with the greatest venera- 
tion, and regarded him as the first who clothed 
vernacular minstrelsy in the graces of polished 
diction. Next to him we must mention Hartmann 
Von Aue, whose paraphrases of the British legends 
show, in their deviations from the original, a high 
degree even of moral delicacy. 

But it was Wolfram von Eschenbach who first 
reconstructed these fragments of British romance 
in accordance with the prevailing spirit of chivalry. 
In his " Parzival" he presents to us a youth whose 
experience illustrates the transition from the wild 
spirit of warlike enterprise which characterised 
the old heroic age, to the devoted zeal which 
belonged to the purest days of chivalry. But as 
all high-soaring imaginations are apt to find more 
caricatures than fair representations in this world, 
so while Wolfram, in his " Parzival," presents to 
us the religious side of chivalry, Gottfried of 
Strasburgh shows us its courtly and secular cha- 
racter in his " Tristan." These two poems are 
opposed to each other in character, almost as widely 
as the solemn Don Quixote and his very secular 
squire, Sancho Panza. In the former, we have all 
the earnestness of chivalry, its enthusiasm and its 
orthodoxy : in the latter we have the ironical 
humour, the absurdity, and all the mockery of 
earthly realities attendant on the fine dreams of 
the aspiring knight, embodied in a form which, 
like the famous coarse-minded Sancho, seemed 
destined to dog the steps of chivalry and, ulti- 
mately, to lead to its degradation. These two 
poems became the types of two schools of poetry, 
one carrying out the high, religious tone of chivalry 
to an extreme point of superstition, in the thirteenth 
century, while the other, at last, reduced the lays 
of knightly minstrelsy to such a low standard as to 
supply amusement to the common people. 

The code of ethics which characterised the 
institution of chivalry was too conventional, too 
little founded in truth and common sense, too 
much, in short, the creature of imagination, to 
bear the tests of time and the rude assaults of 
ridicule. We may trace, even to its palmiest days, 
that tendency to present itself in extravagant con- 
trast to the dictates of sober judgment and good 
sense which, ultimately, made it the butt of popular 
ridicule. The splendour of the institution under 
Frederick I. was so attractive, that a crowd of 
imitators sprung up, deficient in the inward call- 
ing, the true enthusiasm necessary to sustain the 
knight-errant at his proper degree of dignity. 
Hence, we find the original profession of high 
devotion to honourable ladies lapsing into license, 
and the vocation of the chivalrous minstrel dege- 
nerating in the hands of mechanical composers of 
monotonous and sickly stanzas. Indeed, minstrelsy 
became a trade, and like other trades, was injured 
by over-abundant success. 

There is something noble in the original idea of 
the knight, gentle and brave, uniting the warlike 
virtues of his stern forefathers with some traces of 
Christian sentiment, longing for high enterprise to 
give something of moral interest to the dull routine 
of common-place existence, carrying in his bosom 
the secret faith of a new and brighter world, 
dreaming of establishing the sway of virtue and 
courage, attended by all that is most graceful and 
beautiful in human life, and devoted to a great 
religious purpose ; but, surely, there is, on the 



6 



THE MINNESINGERS. 



other hand, something ludicrous in the picture of 
the degenerate knight, armed for noble achieve- 
ments, yet wasting the prime of his days in idle 
dreamery, riding along with melancholy aspect, 
and calling, in his monotonous lament, on woods, 
and streams, and gentle birds, to sympathise with 
his sorrow on account of the unkindness of his 
elected lady, to whom, perhaps, he has never made 
any proposals in downright earnest. 

Thus sings one of these complaining minstrels, 
and the poetical records of chivalry are full of 
repetitions, in a genuine cuckoo-style, of the same 
sentiment — 

Shall all that I have sung and said, 

My days of faithful service, past 

In patient toil, for ever fled, 

Be crown'd with no reward at last ? 

All fail to make her heart relent, 

And leave me only this lament ? 

These knightly minstrels yielded themselves too 
much to their favourite theme, the praise of fair 
ladies, which made their morals lax and their 
verses monotonous. In the thirteenth century, we 
find a considerable decay of the genuine spirit of 
chivalry ; and Stricker, in his poems under the 
title of « The World," tells of the degeneracy of 
courtly life. The decline of morals aroused some 
superior minds to express their censures freely, on 
clergy and laity, in satirical and didactic poems ; 
and among these the best of minstrel reformers 
was Walter von der Vogelwaide, whose verses 
are full of sound proverbs on the affairs of public 
and private life. The didactic tendency which he 
gave to the lays of the Minnesingers appeared 
afterwards in the a Walsche Gast; " a system of 
lay morals. By degrees, it descended to the lower 
classes. Poetry turned away from courtly to 
popular audiences, and the conventional morality 
of the Minnesingers was changed for a popular 
didactic and satiric style, often coarse enough. 
Hans Rosenplut (in 1460) was one of the most 
popular poets of this class, and was followed by 
Michael Beheim, whose style was very rude. We 
now arrive at the period of a popular poetry, 
marked out by the well-known production of 
" Reynard the Fox." As the knightly school of 
poetry had left out of its consideration, as unworthy 
of celebration, the lives and doings of the people, 
these could not be expected to remain satisfied 
with a strain of poetry which never appealed to 
their feelings. They revenged themselves for this 
neglect by producing a poetry of their own in the 
shape of satirical fables on the hypocrisies and 
mummeries of courtly life. In the fourteenth 
century this style of poetry (if we may so cheaply 
employ the name) prevailed over the decaying 
school of chivalry. Thus a false and conventional 
refinement lapsed into the tone of vulgar satire. 
So every covering thrown over the surface of 
society, unaccompanied by a true general improve- 
ment of the minds and dispositions of the people, 
is sure to be torn away by some rude outbreak of 
the real popular character. 

Thus, if the Dutch could be persuaded, for a 
while, by the dictates of some conventional school, 
to abandon their favourite style of painting, their 
interiors enlivened by boors and their canal-scenery, 
and profess an ardent admiration for the exotic 
productions of the sublime and supernatural school, 
such a professional change, unfounded in any true 



elevation of the national character, could only be 
temporary, and, doubtless, from such a fit you 
would soon find them returning, tired of assumed 
raptures at visions of angels, miracles, and mar- 
tyrs, to luxuriate, with more congenial compla- 
cency, over their own boor-scenes by Teniers, 
Ostade, and Jan Steen. If we may be allowed a 
short digression for further illustration, we would 
refer to the times of the Commonwealth and the 
Restoration in England. Here we have an air of 
devoutness arbitrarily imposed upon the people : 
long sermons, on Sundays, take the place of high 
may-poles, and " Merry England " promises to 
become a grave nation of biblical commentators ; 
but is this appearance founded in any true im- 
provement of the popular character \ Mark the 
sequel — " the king enjoys his own again " — a new 
code of morals (or rather no code at all) prevails 
hi the courtly circle — the people learn the new 
tune as easily as they forget the old one ; and the 
fact is evident — they still remain just what they 
were. So the refinements of chivalry were but a 
superficial polish put upon the face of a state of 
society still rude and uncultivated. As that polish 
wore off, the coarse grain of the original substance 
again became visible. 

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when 
literature had fallen into the hands of the people, 
we find a last but unsuccessful effort put forth by 
several of the princes of Southern Germany to 
revive the interest of chivalric poetry ; but mere 
dull, antiquarian copyists now took the place of 
the original minstrels, and produced only a faded 
and distorted image of the past. The essays made 
in this way under the patronage of the emperor 
Maximilian were singularly unhappy. 

In the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries the influence of foreign literature, diffused 
in translations from Boccaccio, Petrarch, iEneas 
Sylvius, Poggio, &c, was equally opposed to every 
lingering trace of the school of chivalry and to the 
coarseness of the rising popular literature. 

This short notice of the decline of chivalrous 
minstrelsy illustrates the principle, that poetry, 
with all its freedom from the constraints of mere 
history, is not independent of the times in which it 
is produced ; but requires certain conditions of 
human society and interest to impart to it a vigor- 
ous and permanent vitality. 

Chivalry and its characteristic minstrelsy were 
deficient in the elements of true and lasting 
interest. Thus fades away every superstructure 
of the imagination, however bright and beautiful, 
which is not based upon true virtue. The beauti- 
ful requires a deep and strong rootedness in the 
good to endure in this world. A new age of 
chivalry and a new school of poetry accompanying 
it, such as many superior minds have longed to 
see, may yet arise ; but it must be more purely 
Christian than that which has passed away. Its 
weapons must not be earthly ones, but the celestial 
virtues of patience, benevolence, and the love of 
all that is good, true, and beautiful. The poet of 
the coming age must seek his rewards not in 
splendid courts, the smiles of princes, and the 
favour of high-titled dames ; but 

In lowly huts where poor men lie. 

A new aristocracy, intellectual and moral, must 
arise ; not one of plumes, orders, and coronets, 



THE NIEBELUNGEN-LIED. 



but one of deep lowly thoughts, and genuine devo- 
tion to high humanity, amid all the contentions of 
erroneous parties, quietly and steadily maintaining 
the character of the true, the good, and the beau- 
tiful. Old chivalry was a bright but fantastic 
dream of the true age of chivalry which is to come. 
Yet, amid all its vagaries, we owe something to 
that old chivalry which developed some amiable 
features amid the rudeness of the times ; and 
sometimes aimed at higher objects than those 
which animated the soldier-chieftains of ancient 
Rome. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE NIEBELUNGEN-LIED. 

Amid all the pieces of mere versification which 
crowd upon our attention, in German as well as in 
English literature, it is not difficult to distinguish the 
work of the true original poet, from the weak imita- 
tions which surround or follow it. Every work which 
presents to us an original view of human fife, in 
any one of its thousand-fold varieties; which, with a 
vigorous spirit, represents to us the past, and 
makes its heroes five and act again, as in our 
presence, bears the true impress of genius, and 
merits preservation, though it may be defective in 
elegant diction, or even in the more serious interest 
of morality. And such a work is the famous old 
" Niebelungen-lied " — an epic of the times when men 
were strange, grim, wild beasts, and ladies were as 
beautiful, and also as sanguinary as leopards. 

The date of this poem is somewhere in the twelfth 
century, but in all probability it was founded upon 
and grew genially out of old tragical ballads of a 
very early origin. Something more than the slight 
fragments from misty old times, from which our 
Macpherson composed his incongruous " Ossian," 
inspired the minstrel, or minstrels, who, even in the 
palmy days of chivalry, dared to confront the senti- 
mental lays of the period with this grim represen- 
tation of the stern old times of Gunther, Siegfried, 
and Hagen. 

Whatever were the fragments which served as 
a basis to the rhapsodist, he was more faithful in 
preserving the spirit and the features of his ori- 
ginal than were the Minnesingers of his age, who 
decked out their old legends with ornaments 
derived from a later period. The poet of the 
"Niebelungen-lied" throws no Christian graces, no 
ornaments of a later period of history, over the 
rude materials from which he fashioned his epic : 
he leaves Gunther, Kriemhilde, Siegfried, Hagen, 
and his other heroes and heroines as he found 
them — sanguinary barbarians, with no pretence to 
the refinements of gentle knights and noble ladies ; 
consequently, we may esteem this rude production 
as of better moral tendency, (if we may speak of 
any moral interest in connection with it,) than 
many contemporary legends, where the Christian 
faith and profession are intermingled with many 
very questionable matters. If the heroes and he- 
roines of the " Niebelungen-lied" robbed, deceived, 
lied, and murdered, it was openly and avowedly to 
suit their own interests, or indulge their bad 
passions — no cloak of a professed religious pur- 
pose made their deeds blacker ; they are not set 
forth as knights, gentle and brave, yet stained 
with blood shed plenteously to satiate revenge ; 



but as barbarians, proud, violent, selfish, fierce, 
sanguinary and implacable as the heathen deities ! 

A brief sketch of the argument will be enough 
to introduce a few extracts from this old epic, and 
then we may hasten on to the times when the 
German Muse, once delighted with these tragical 
materials, becomes most tenderly sentimental, and 
indites sonnets to roses, violets, and moonbeams. 

Here is the tale of bloodshed : — like Homer's 
story, it begins with a fair woman : — 

In Burgundy there nourished a maiden wondrous fair- 
In all the lands around none with her could compare. 
And Kriemhilde was the name of this most beauteous maid, 
For whose sake many warriors brave in bloody graves 

were laid. 
Our heroine had received, in a dream, such an 
unfavourable omen of marriage, that she had re- 
solved to spend her days in celibacy. But there 
was one destined to shake the maiden's determina- 
tion. The fame of her beauty aroused the spirit 
of Siegfried, son of Siegmund, king of Netherland. 
Armed with a magical sword and a cap that made 
its wearer invisible, besides being rendered in- 
vulnerable in body (but for one unlucky spot be- 
tween his shoulders) by bathing in the blood of a 
conquered dragon, he considered himself amply 
prepared for the enterprise of gallantry upon which 
he set out — to win the hand of Kriemhilde. 
There grew up, in the Netherland, a royal stripling fair— 
(King Siegmund and Queen Siegelind the hero's parents 

were ;) 
And in a splendid castle., a place of mighty fame, 
He dwelt beside the river Rhine, and Santen was its name. 
He grew up like a warrior and beautiful to see, 
And virtuous as beautiful, from all dishonour free. 
The glory of his prowess was spread through many a land, 
And many were the wonders of his strong and daring hand. 
Before he came to manhood his fame abroad was spread, 
His sword had won him glory in many deeds of dread ; 
But to tell of all these wonders would fill too long a rhyme, 
So we pass them o'er in silence for the shortness of our 

time. 

The youth has one qualification for success, as 
important, perhaps, as his magical sword and in- 
visible cap — he has a mind and a will of his own. 
Thus he declares it : — 

Thus to his father Siegmund the noble Siegfried says ; — 
" Without the love of woman will I spend my lonely days, 
If I am not free to choose the maiden whom I love " — 
So Siegfried said : — no counsel could his resolution move. 

" Then if it must be so," said Siegmund the king, 

" I'll help you as I may, my son ; but 'tis a dangerous 

thing : 
For Gunther at his court, where you will a- wooing go, 
Has many mighty warriors who will plan your over- 
throw." 

Accordingly, Siegfried determines to set out on 
the adventure of winning Kriemhilde's hand, with 
the attendance of only twelve knights. The Queen 
Siegelind and her ladies prepared suitable array 
for the young hero, and he departed, as we should 
say, ' in excellent spirits. 

King Siegmund and the Queen gave the warrior leave 

to go- 
As they said " farewell " in sorrow, thus he comforted their 

woe : — 
" Nay do not weep, good father and dear mother too, for 

me, 
My life is safe :— from bitter care let both your hearts be 

free ! " 



THE NIEBELUNGEN-LIED. 



We cannot accompany the hero through all his 
adventures at the court of Burgundy. Here, 
having gained the favour of King Gunther (Kriem- 
hilde's brother) by assisting him in the overthrow 
of many enemies, Siegfried proceeds further in his 
good fortune by persuading Kriemhilde to lay aside 
all memory of her ominous dream and accept him 
as her betrothed. But we must not thus drily 
pass over all details of the only affaire du cceur 
which relieves the atrocities of tliis sanguinary old 
epic. Here are some pleasant glimpses of true 
love in a barbarous age : — 

The ladies of King Gunther's court inquired the hero's 

name, 
And whence the bold and noble knight, and why he 

hither came, 
So beautiful in person and so splendid in array — 
* ' Tis the hero of the Nether land," the gallant courtiers say. 

At every game and spectacle the hero was displayed 

Who carried in his heart the image of the maid ; 

And the maiden, still unseen, though he came her love to 

win, 
Had kindly thoughts for him her secret bosom in. 

For when, within the court, the knights and squires would 
play 

With lances, spears, and swords, in battle-like array, 

Kriemhilde, through her window, would watch the pas- 
time long ; 

No better pastime needed she if he was in the throng ! 

And had he known that she whom he carried in his breast 
Was looking from her window, and marked him from the 

rest, 
Or had he met her eye there, I verily believe 
He would have been as happy as a man may be and live ! 

Siegfried had proved himself a genuine hero of 
romance by daring to fall in love with an unseen 
lady. No wonder that he was impatient for an 
interview. There are touches in the following 
scene which seem too delicate for the rude rhapso- 
dist of the " Niebeiungen-hed." 

She came out from her chamber ; so comes the morning 

red 
Forth from the gloomy clouds ; upon her dress were spread 
Bright gems ; her glowing cheeks her secret love confess'd ; 
Of all the maids on earth she the fairest was and best. 

For as among the stars the full moon clearly gleams 
And scatters every cloud with her bright and silver beams, 
So 'mid the other ladies Kriemhilde's beauty shone ; 
The hearts of many heroes beat high as they looked on. 

The chamberlains before her walked, in costly garments 

dress'd, 
To see the lovely maiden the warriors onward pressed ; 
As Siegfried stood expecting to look upon her face, 
By turns, despair and love found within his bosom place. 

Thus said he to himself,—" How could I ever deem 
That I could win the maid ? 'twas but an idle dream ; 
But if I cannot win her, then I were better dead." 
And with his thoughts his cheeks by turns were pale and 
red. 

Said one of the Burgundians, — the chamberlain Gern6t, 
" The hero who has fought for us must not be now forgot ; 
So let the maiden welcome him before this company, 
And give him thanks and praises due for all his bravery." 

The servants found the hero bold, Siegfried of Netherland, 
And bade him boldly come in front of all the warriors' 

band ; 
" King Gunther to his presence is pleased to summon you, 
That his sister may salute you and give the honour due." 



His soul rose high within him when he saw Kriemhilde 

there, 
And rosy flushed his cheeks as spoke the maiden fair ; 
" I bid you welcome, Siegfried, a warrior good and brave!" 
The kindly salutation new strength and courage gave. 

To thank her for her kindness the hero bowed his head, 
And love drew near together the hero and the maid ; 
For, as he bowed his head, a stolen glance was cast, 
And, suddenly, from eye to eye the tender secret passed. 

That he kissed Kriemhilde's hand, upon this happy day, 
In the fervour of his love, is more than I can say ; 
Yet I cannot well believe he would let the moment flee 
Without such proper sign of his love and constancy. 

In all the summer season, or the pleasant month of May, 
He never had such pleasure as on that happy day, — 
When he walked beside the maiden whom he came to 

make his bride, 
When Kriemhilde whom he loved was walking by his side ! 

Soon after this favourable opening of his court- 
ship, Siegfried recommends himself to King Gun- 
ther, by assisting him in winning the hand of a 
tremendous Amazon, named Brunhilde, Queen of 
Isenland. This was done by fulfilling the arduous 
conditions with which this queen proffered her 
hand to every bold suitor, — by vanquishing Her 
Majesty in the sports of throwing the spear, leap- 
ing, and hurling a prodigious mass of stone, like 
one of Homer's heroes on the Trojan plain. As a 
reward for this assistance, King Gunther gave to 
Siegfried the hand of Kriemhilde, and their mar- 
riage took place soon after the conquest of Queen 
Brunhilde. But now we have two ladies (and both 
proud ones) in the plot, and it is no wonder if we 
soon scent mischief at the court of King Gunther. 
The Queen, Brunhilde, was offended at the appa- 
rent low rank of Siegfried, who had dared to match 
himself with royalty. Moreover, Siegfried had 
been caUed in to complete the conquest of the 
Amazon who had turned the bridal chamber into 
a battle-ground, had almost beaten her royal hus- 
band to death, and, after binding him hand and 
foot with her girdle, had completed the ignominy 
by suspending him upon a nail in the wall ! Such 
a conflict, in such a place, was, surely, never 
described by any other epic poet ; but we must 
pass over aU the grotesque and amusing details. 
After a very hard fight with the royal lioness, 
Siegfried left her thoroughly subdued and meek as 
a lamb, and bore away, as trophies of his victory, 
her girdle and her ring. These trophies, in an ill- 
omened hour, he gave to his wife Kriemhilde. 
Marvellous to tell, after this seed of dissension had 
been sown, two years were allowed to pass away in 
peace ! This, however, may be explained by the 
fact that the ladies were kept asunder ; for Sieg- 
fried had taken his wife to his own country. But 
Queen Brunhilde, intent on a quarrel, reminded 
her husband that the hero of the Netherland had 
neglected to present himself at the court. Accord- 
ingly, Siegfried and Kriemhilde were invited to the 
court at Worms. Here the ladies encountered 
each other, and, in a little time, materials were 
concocted for ire more fell than that of Achilles, 
and consequent battles more sanguinary than any 
that stained the plain of Troy. Queen Brunhilde 
and Kriemhilde had not been long together before 
they engaged on a most dangerous topic of conver- 
sation, — the comparative excellence of their re- 



THE NIEBELUNGEN-LIED. 



spective husbands. What but evil could arise 
from such a discussion ? 

The two queens sat together, at the vesper-hour of day, 
And watch'd the warriors in the court engaged in martial 

play; 
Then said Kriemhilde, the beautiful, " If Siegfried had his 

right, 
All the people of this kingdom should be subject to his 

might." 

But then spoke out Queen Brunhilde, "Why say you such 

a thing ? 
If none but you and he were living, then he might be king ; 
But long as lives King Gunther it shall never be, 
But Siegfried must be vassal to the court of Burgundy." 

And then, again, said Kriemhilde, " But do you see him 

stand ? 
Not one so stately there amid all your warriors' band : 
He steps before them all, as the moon in full array 
Stands in front of all the stars ; and his beauty makes 

me gay." 

And thus replied Queen Brunhilde, " However brave and 

fair, 
He cannot, for a moment, with the King himself compare : 
To the King, your noble brother, give the highest honour 

due; 
He ranks above all other kings, and that, you know, 

is true ! " 

The dispute, thus begun, was brought to an issue 
when the rival queens went to mass in the Minster. 

They came before the Minster, all clad in fine array, 
King Gunther's wife was wroth ; for Kriemhilde led the 

way. 
" How dare," said she, (i a vassal's wife do such a haughty 

thing ? 
Shall Siegfried's wife thus walk before the consort of a 

king ? " 

Then Kriemhilde turned in anger and answered thus the 

queen — 
44 Ah ! had you only held your peace, it might have better 

been ; 
I say you are not honest— I know a secret thing — 
And how dare Siegfried's concubine be consort of theking ?" 

Here we must break off ; for we cannot give 
anything like a bold and fair version of the dispute 
that followed this retort. To confirm the accusa- 
tion, Kriemhilde produced the fatal girdle and the 
ring which she had received from Siegfried. Queen 
Brunhilde, mad with wrath, soon laid a plot of 
vengeance and engaged the fiercest hero of Bur- 
gundy, Hagen, the uncle of King Gunther, to 
revenge upon Siegfried the insult offered by his 
wife ; though the hero of the Netherland denied, 
with an oath, all participation in the offence ; and 
even, to confirm his oath, promised to inflict a 
severe punishment on his lady. But Hagen hated 
Siegfried on his own account, and undertook the 
work of revenge as a labour of love. Having won, 
deceitfully, from Kriemhilde the secret of the only 
vulnerable spot in her husband's body, he invited 
the young hero to join a hunting-party. 

King Gunther and his warrior, Uncle Hagen, bold and 
brave, 

Went a hunting in the forest, where the dark-green fir- 
trees wave. 

In treachery to Siegfried, they went, with spears, to slay 

The bear and the wild boar in a forest far away. 



The hero kissed his wife ere he joined the hunting-train— 
' i God grant, my dearest one, I may see you soon again ! 
Meanwhile, with your companions make merry as you can, 
And drive away the hours till you see your faithful man." 

Then said she to the hero—" My husband, do not go ! 
For I have had a dream that filled my heart with woe :— 
For two wild boars were chasing you along the dismal 

wood, 
And all the flowers along the way were rosy with your 

blood. 

"I fear there may be treachery in some who join the 

chase, 
For surely we have enemies and traitors in this place. 
And those whom I offended may follow you with hate ; 
Oh, stay with me and counsel take before it is too late ! " 

Then said thehero Siegfried — "Kriemhilde, do not mourn, 
No evil thing shall happen me, and soon I will return ; 
Of enemies about the court I know not I have one; 
Your brother owes me kindness, sure, for all that I have 
done ! " 

But then again said Kriemhilde — " Oh, Siegfried, keep 

away! 
I had another dream just before I woke to-day : 
Two rocks fell down upon you as you walked along the 

vale, 
And hid you from my sight as I woke, with weeping, pale." 

Then Siegfried folded closely Kriemhilde in his arms, 

And kissed her many times to banish her alarms ; 

Till she gave him leave to go ; then he hastened to the 

chase — 
But never more saw Kriemhilde her husband's living 

face! 

The dreams of Kriemhilde proved too surely 
ominous ; for, during the chase, as the young hero 
was stooping to drink at a spring, Hagen pierced 
him with a lance just in the vulnerable spot between 
the shoulders. 

The spring was clear, and cool and sweet— King Gunther 

stoop'd to drink 
Beside the hero Siegfried, who kneel'd upon the brink ; 
And when the king had quenched his thirst, he rose and 

stood again, 
But Siegfried, while he bowed his head, by Hagen 's hand 

was slain. 

First, Hagen took the hero's bow and falchion from his 

side, 
And carried them away 'mid the forest-leaves to hide ; 
Then, with javelin in hand, he looked upon the coat 
Where the fatal spot was marked, and then, suddenly, he 

smote. 

While Siegfried stoop'd and drank at the fountain cool and 

clear, 
Hagen smote him 'twixt the shoulders so deeply with the 

spear, 
That the heart's blood of the hero gush'd out and flew so 

high, 
The hunting-dress of Hagen was stained with crimson dye. 

The rest of the story we shall relate in the 
briefest style possible ; for it seems to carry only 
the worst of all morals — blood for blood. Hagen 
cruelly caused the corpse of the murdered Sieg- 
fried to be laid at Kriemhilde's chamber-door. 

Long and deep was the mourning for Siegfried. 
But now, while Brunhilde felt satiated with revenge, 
the widowed Kriemhilde, in her turn, began to 
meditate dire vengeance. She went home with 
her father-in-law, Siegmund, to the Netherland. 
Here, after a time, she received an embassy from 
Etzel, King of the Huns, praying that she would 



10 



THE NIEBELUNGEN-LIED. 



give him her hand. She took a second husband 
as an instrument to avenge the death of Siegfried ; 
and, amid all the splendours of the marriage-fes- 
tivity, her heart was nursing thoughts of destruc- 
tion for her enemies. After the lapse of thirteen 
years, she returned the unfriendly compliment of 
Queen Brunhilde, which had led to the murder of 
Siegfried, by inviting King Gunther, his brothers, 
and his uncle, Hagen, to a great feast in Hungary. 
After some doubts and suspicions, this invitation 
was accepted ; and the king set out for Hungary, 
with a company of 1000 knights and 9000 squires, 
as ready for a fray as for a feast. Kriemhilde, 
now the Queen of the Huns, began the quarrel by 
demanding from Hagen the treasure of her former 
husband, Siegfried, of which he rudely refused to 
give any account. 

The next morning after their arrival King Etzel 
invited his guests to attend mass with him ; but 
his treacherous design was avoided by the compa- 
nions of King Gunther, who went to church in full 
armour. After mass, there was a great banquet, 
where Etzel and his knights prudently imitated 
the guests from Burgundy, and sat at table armed 
to the teeth. A grim company, where the parties 
were as ready to spill each other's blood as to pour 
out wine ! 

The ferocious Hagen, who seemed eager to bring 
secret ill-will into open strife, cast an insult upon 
the young prince, Ortlieb, the son of Etzel and 
Kriemhilde. After this, swords stayed not long in 
their sheaths. The onslaught was commenced by 
King Etzel's brother, named Blodelin, who accused 
Dankwart, the brother of Hagen, as one of Sieg- 
fried's murderers. Dankwart answered the charge 
by striking off the head of Blodelin. And now 
began a scene of horrible carnage. The Burgun- 
dian squires, led on by Dankwart, drove out from 
the dining-hall the knights of King Etzel ; but 
these, soon returning to the charge with augmented 
numbers, slew all the nine thousand. Dankwart 
cut his way through the Huns, and announced to 
his formidable brother Hagen the murder of the 
squires ; upon which Hagen began battle in the 
hall, where the longs Gunther and Etzel, with 
their respective companies of knights, were sitting, 
by striking off the head of the young prince, which 
fell into the lap of Queen Kriemhilde. Imme- 
diately began an onslaught as violent as that in the 
Squires' Hall. King Etzel and his queen were 
rescued from the slaughter by the stout knight 
Dietrich, who bore them away in his arms. The 
knights of Burgundy avenged the slaughter of their 
squires by slaying the 7000 knights of King Etzel 
and throwing their bodies out of the hall- window. 
But Kriemhilde soon renewed the conflict by 
bringing against the Burgundian knights an army 
of 20,000 Huns. After a fierce fight, when the 
Huns had lost great numbers, and only 600 of the 
heroes of Burgundy remained, the hall was fired ; 
and, in the madness of their rage and thirst, Hagen 
and his company drank the blood of their foes. 
The fire was quenched ; and, on the next morn- 
ing, the besieged knights slew another host of 
Huns. But now the story becomes monotonous 
in its catastrophe of carnage. Yet in this part 
of the old legend of blood-shedding, we find the 
only trait of anythhig like gentleness and gene- 
rosity which relieves the crimson of its pages. 
This is in the character of Rudiger, the Hunnish 



knight, who had performed the rites of hospitality 
to the Burgundian knights upon their journey, and 
was only prevailed upon to join in the slaughter 
by the earnest entreaties of the King and the 
Queen. Before he joined battle he supplied Hagen 
with his own shield ; and even this stern man- 
killer was so far moved by the compliment that he 
vowed to spare Rudiger's life. But this brave 
knight fell by another hand, and all his fellow- 
knights, after fighting until the Burgundian heroes 
were reduced to a few, were numbered with the 
slain. We hurry over the piles of the dead to 
the conclusion, where we find none left in the 
bloody hall but King Gunther and Hagen. Dietrich, 
at last, after another hard fight, succeeded in 
binding and carrying captive King Gunther and 
Hagen. Queen Kriemhilde demanded of the latter 
the secret of Siegfried's hidden treasure, and, on 
his refusal to disclose it, commanded the head of 
her own brother King Gunther to be struck off — 
which, of course, was instantly done. Hagen still 
persisted in his refusal, and the heroine, unsheath- 
ing the magic sword of her former husband, next 
struck off the head of her uncle ! Even King 
Etzel wept over the death of the stem hero by the 
hand of a woman. The poem concludes with one 
hard stroke of poetical justice, the death of the 
woman from whose tongue one bitter word had 
stirred up all this fatal strife ! Hildebrand, the 
friend of Dietrich, not bearing that a hero should 
perish unrevenged, plunged his falchion into the 
side of the Queen, who fell to fill the number of 
the slam, and Dietrich and King Etzel are left to 
mourn and bury the dead. The rhapsodist gives 
one short moral (and a very bad one) to all this 
murder, saying ; — 

Thus love doth evermore its dole and sorrow bring ;— 
then breaks off with — 

But what, since then, befel ; I cannot sing or say.— 

Such is the story of the famous " Niebelugen- 
lied," a production which has supplied dramatic 
subjects to German painters, such as Cornelius and 
Schnorr, for the decoration of the King of Bava- 
ria's palace at Munich. And, if stripped of its 
charms of style, how much better would the bare 
argument even of the " Iliad " appear ? How far 
would " divine " Achilles tower, in true strength 
and greatness, above the ferocious, bloody-handed 
Hagen ? There is a moral even in this old Ger- 
man epic, though it might be far from the thoughts 
of the rhapsodist who poured it forth, evidently, 
con amove. It is a sincere exposure of the old 
times of violence, the days of heroes renowned for 
strength, but who were weaker than babes in every 
truly manly virtue. That to forgive injuries, to 
make peace, to subdue violent passions is a task 
proving a greater strength and a sterner courage 
than all evinced in the carnage of the " Iliad " or the 
" Niebelungen-lied " was a truth unknown in the 
days of King Gunther and his hero Hagen. 

The only interest which this singular old epic 
retains is in its style. Here it may claim a pre- 
eminence over many poems, superior in other 
respects, which have usurped the name of the epic. 
In the clear style of its narrative and the naivete 
with which the old rhapsodist often dashes off a 
striking picture in a few simple lines there is pre- 
sented a profitable study even for some modern 
poets. 



POPULAR SATIRES.— HANS SACHS.— OPITZ. 



11 



CHAPTER III. 

Contents.— Popular Satires.— Ulrich von Hutten.— Hans 
Sachs.— The Drama.— Opitz.— The "German Palm-tree" 
Society. — The Eighteenth Century. — Mediocrities. — The 
Halherstadt School. — Bodmer. — Klopstock. — Gleim.— 
Wieland. — Lessing. — Herder. — Burger — Jean Paul Rich- 
ter. — Kotzebue. — Schiller. — Goethe. 

We must pass hastily over the period which 
may be termed the middle age of German poetry ; 
for, though it has left its curiosities for the literary 
antiquary, it furnishes little that would be of gene- 
ral interest for English readers. 

We have mentioned Walter von der Vogel- 
waide as one of the first who set the example of a 
transition from the conventional morals of the 
Minnesingers to the bolder tone of popular satire 
and invective. He was followed by lower and 
more unscrupulous versifiers. A sort of poetical 
mania pervaded the country, and cobblers, plough- 
men, tinkers, schoolmasters, and beggars set their 
hands to the lyric to reform their superiors. As 
the Minnesingers had told their fine feelings in 
verse, so the 'people would now make their confes- 
sions ; and, certainly, they had more variety and 
vigour in their poetry than ever belonged to the 
politer order of knightly poets. Ulrich von 
Hutten was vigorous in his anti-aristocratic invec- 
tives against the Pope, the clergy, the monks, and 
the nobility ; but he is hardly a fair specimen of 
the popular poets of the time, as he was a man 
of some education. Hans Sachs, a most prolific 
scribbler, paints the times in which he lived in a 
vivid style. These were the days when there was 
no king in the poetical Israel. " Every man did 
that which was right in his own eyes." In the 
fifteenth century some hymns in circulation were 
translated from the Latin, others were made on the 
model of popular melodies, so as often to call the 
original types to mind very ludicrously. The most 
important truth which we gain from these rude 
productions of the times immediately preceding 
the Reformation is that, long ago, the preparation 
for such a movement had been made in the separa- 
tion of the real faith and interest of the people 
from the claims and pretensions of the clergy. In 
the fifteenth century there was a reaction against 
civil rights in politics, as, in the church, against 
the liberty of the mystics, the humanists, and 
admirers of old heathen literature. Scholasticism, 
superstition, and all kinds of pious frauds prevailed, 
making easier the way for the coming Reforma- 
tion. The old religious strain of ecclesiastical 
poetry was renewed until, with the Reformation, a 
simple and evangelical style of psalmody was 
introduced by Luther. Those who would become 
acquainted with the popular poetry of the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries may refer to the collections 
edited by Hoffmann von Fallersleben. 

We have not mentioned the existence of the 
drama during these times. The dramatic produc- 
tions of the middle age, down to the fourteenth 
century, were chiefly composed in Latin, and de- 
voted to religious subjects. The dramatic forms 
were borrowed from Rome, and the church sup- 
plied the materials. The most sacred themes were 
arrayed in a rude dramatic form, like that of the 
Mysteries once popular in England. These sacred 



exhibitions, however, degenerated into the carnival- 
farce, or " Fastnachtspiel," a comic popular enter- 
tainment for Shrove Tuesday. Afterwards, as the 
literati studied the Roman dramatists, Terence 
and Plautus, better notions of dramatic art were 
gained, and the subjects chosen were not exclu- 
sively religious. Hans Sachs had conceived, a plan, 
whieh made an epoch in the popular taste, of 
translating the materials found in the old legends 
and ballads out of the epic into the dramatic form. 
But he did not write for the stage though he 
adopted its style. Opitz took the drama under his 
care, but did not write for the people. He trans- 
lated two pieces from Sophocles and Seneca, and 
two Italian operas. About 1600, a company of 
so-called English players went through Germany, 
and the most brilliant success rewarded their 
coarse representations. Jacob Ayrer, who flou- 
rished in 1618, took advantage of this dramatic 
taste, and wrote in accordance with popular likings 
with great effect. John Klay (1644) wrote a 
series of religious monologues, interspersed with 
songs. Andreas Gryphius showed true dramatic 
talent, though disfigured by the prevailing vulgari- 
ties. Lohensteins wrote tragedies in imitation of 
Gryphius, but in a style still coarser and full of 
atrocities, to suit the public taste. A flood of taste- 
less operas and extravagant scenic exhibitions 
succeeded. Religionists and men of taste equally 
laboured against this ridiculous passion for fantas- 
tic and incongruous spectacles. Among the critics 
who attempted the reformation of the stage, 
Gottsched, who wrote a paraphrase of Addison's 
" Cato," was eminent. But we must turn back to 
notice the general progress of poetry in the seven- 
teenth century. 

When the Reformation was settled and a new 
hierarchy founded, poetry returned from the hands 
of the people into the care of the clergy and men 
of literature. About the time of the " thirty-years' 
war" the society of the " German Palm-tree" was 
founded, for the improvement of the national 
literature. This society had considerable influence 
in the elevation of German poetry from its low 
condition, and confirmed the dialect of Upper 
Saxony in its supremacy. One of the most notable 
members of the Palm-tree order was Opitz (1597), 
who endeavoured to stamp upon the productions 
of his vernacular literature something of classic 
elegance. He was in favour of a didactic and 
artificial school of poetry, and was followed by a 
crowd of imitators. Two of the best poets of the 
seventeenth century were Paul Gerhard and 
Andreas Gryphius, already mentioned as a drama- 
tist. The influence of Opitz and his school did 
not prevent some from remaining true to the old 
popular school, which revived in many ballads 
during and after the " thirty-years' war." 

When we open the catalogues of German poetry 
in the eighteenth century, we shrink back aghast 
from the innumerable host of mediocrities, in verse 
of all sorts, which meet our eye and claim our 
notice. Germany has always been peculiarly liable 
to literary epidemics, and surely poetical epidemics 
enough to destroy a healthy population visited the 
land in this century ! To write the catalogue of 
its poets would occupy a page. We must shorten 
our notices by the dogmatic assertion that an over- 
whelming majority of these bardlings are unworthy 
of notice ; and let those who would question our 



12 



KLOPSTOCK.— WIELAND.— LESSING.— HERDER.— GOETHE. 



judgment read the neglected ones, if they can. 
Weak, sickly, sentimental versifiers abounded in 
this century, who mistook a little talent of imita- 
tion and smooth rhyming for poetic genius, and 
filled with unmeaning twaddle hundreds of volumes 
which never would have been reprinted in any 
country less tolerant than Germany. 

We leave others to go, with slow steps, through 
these records of Lilliputian poets ; to chronicle the 
important doings of the Halberstadt School of poetry, 
with that famous little man, Gleim, at its head ; 
to erect columns in the temple of poesy inscribed 
with such renowned names as can only flourish 
in the records of small coteries ; and to anticipate 
the coming of that glorious time when (as Jean 
Paul says) all men will be poets, from the north 
pole to the south : — but, making short work with 
many of these inglorious names, we shall hasten on 
to Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller. 

But first we must, with some reverence, approach 
Klopstock and his school, for Klopstock must have 
been a great poet, as he wrote the " Messiah," and 
everybody seems to know that the " Messiah " is 
a great poem without reading it. Klopstock raised 
up a school of imitators who mistook imitative 
talent for genius, and boldly rushed on sacred 
themes and seraphic odes. Bodmer produced his 
long, dull epic, "The Noachide ;" Wieland be- 
came a zealot for sacred poetry ; and merry little 
Gleim, whose genius seemed intended for a modest, 
domestic taper, to shed a mild and cheerful fight 
on homely scenes of every-day fife, — aspired to 
glow as one of the seraphic poets, and wrote " Hal- 
ladat," " on divine things," in an oriental style. 
This last-mentioned little bard was a very friendly 
fellow and collected about him, at Halberstadt, a 
crowd of insect poets, who careered about a taper, 
imagining themselves to be planets revolving round 
a sun. 

The most notable disciple of Klopstock's school 
was Wieland, who soon left its confines, and, like 
a man of genius, found a way of his own. No one 
ever turned his back more decidedly upon all his 
early literary associates. He forsook all the reli- 
gious odes and epics of the seraphic school, and, to 
their utter horror and amazement, cutting all 
acquaintance with Young's " Night Thoughts," and 
" The Messiah," turned an Epicurean in his metri- 
cal romances. Like other leaders, he was destined 
to be brought into disrepute by his followers, who 
carried out his humour to licentiousness. For a 
specimen of Wieland's poetry we refer to Sotheby's 
translation of " Oberon." 

While poetry was undetermined what course it 
should next pursue, Lessing arose to turn attention 
to the drama. Herder, too, was eminent as a 
poetical critic ; but as a poet he was inconsistent 
with his own theory of leading back poetry to its 
natural and popular character. But the influences 
of Lessing and Herder were fruitful in the mind 
of Goethe, with whom we have now to trace the 
steps of German poetry. 

Herder was associated with Goethe during his 
studies at Strasburgh, and found the young poet 
bewildered amid the various and uncertain direc- 
tions which the old schools of poetry had left for 
the future. In his early productions (" Laune des 
Verliebten" and "die Mitschuldigen," 1764) he 
expresses something of this bewilderment regard- 
ing the right and seasonable employment of his 



poetic genius. Herder, though far inferior to his 
friend in genius, was his superior hi age, experience, 
and general reading, and had the happiness of 
directing him to a free and natural development 
of his poetic impulses, regardless of the petty 
canons of the little feeble schools which had flou- 
rished. Shakspeare became his favourite author. 
In his youthful, occasional poems, a rare simplicity 
and melodious expression were felt at once. They 
seemed bright, unstudied, and spontaneous as the 
dew drops of a summer's morning. When he 
turned to more serious efforts, his " Gotz von Ber- 
lichingen" and the " Sorrows of Werter" produced 
a vast effect. The best excuse for the latter is 
that its young author himself became heartily sick 
and ashamed of it in the course of a few years. 
During his first stay at Weimar, his poetic pro- 
ductiveness was hindered by many engagements, 
and the productions of this period, " Clavigo " and 
" Stella," are of no great interest. But after his 
return from a tour in Italy, his productiveness was 
renewed ; yet with a considerable deviation from 
the style of natural and spontaneous poetry to 
which he had at first so warmly attached himself. 
The peaceful and cheerful productions of ancient 
art had a permanent effect upon the remaining 
crudeness of his northern nature. He saw the 
importance of studious art, and came home pre- 
pared to contemn the literary fanaticism of the 
romantic school. Yet his northern education re- 
turned upon him with its stern contradictions to a 
beautiful, polished, and cheerful literature, — its 
contests between passion and the intellect, the real 
and the ideal ; and he made his confession in 
" Faust," which has found such copious commen- 
tators. 

We must turn aside to say a few words of 
Goethe's cotemporaries. Burger proceeded from 
Gleim's school, but had more vigour than the rest 
of the fraternity of Halberstadt bardlings. He 
aspired to the freedom of the natural character 
both in his fife and in his verses, and was animated 
by Percy's " Reliques of Old English Poetry" to 
write in the ballad style. Though he aimed at 
popularity, he wrote with care and correctness ; 
but his influence was short-lived. 

Jean Paul Richter was an amiable man of ex- 
tensive sympathies and lively fancies, but unformed 
and unfinished in all that he wrote. His friends 
assured him that he would combine in himself both 
Shakspeare and Sterne ; but this was a truly Ger- 
man mistake. The leading, Proteus-like idea which 
runs through all his writings is that old favourite 
with the Germans, the contest of the ideal with 
the real, of which they talked so much in their 
"world-irony" some years ago. Jean Paul plays 
with this idea in a thousand forms, sometimes sen- 
timentally, sometimes comically. Had he mastered 
a better style he would not not have "written so 
copiously. All fancies that glanced across his 
widely-receptive mind were secured and honoured 
with a place in his pages, apparently with very 
little study concerning their real value. Conse- 
quently, there seems to be a superabundant wealth 
of thoughts and imagery in his writings ; but, in a 
great measure, the glitter and show is that of an 
unweeded garden. Nothing is in good order ; no- 
thing is finished or wrought to perfection. He is a 
cheap hawker who gives you a dozen showy articles 
instead of one good one for your shilling. Goethe 



JEAN PAUL RICHTER. 



13 



said to him, in an epigram, " If you knew how to 
make as good use of your riches as others make of 
their poverty, you would indeed be worthy of our 
wonder." 

In his " Gronlandische Process " he caught, as 
Gervinus says, something of Swift's manner, and 
ridiculing every tiling of a sentimental tone, contemn- 
ing conventional fashions and sesthetic criticisms, 
aspired to the free, the natural, the wild, the boundless 
something or nothing, of which the young romantic 
authors wrote so much. But all this romantic 
character was evidently assumed by the gentle 
author, who soon turned to a more genial sentimen- 
tal strain in his " Unsichtbare Loge." In his humo- 
rous pictures of still life he is most successful, and 
might have been a classic author in this school, if 
he could have wisely limited himself by cultivating 
one excellence to perfection ; but his humour was 
to vibrate between the widest extremes, and from 
these domestic quietudes he would soar away to 
speculate on divine things, immortality and siderial 
systems. His writings show fragments carried 
away from all classes of literature and whelmed 
together in one stream of rhapsody. In his " Katz- 
enberger," " Komet," " Fibel," and " Flegeljahre," 
his style was more composed and orderly ; but the 
old idea of the contest between the real and the 
ideal (which he never mastered, or he would not 
have made so much of it,) is predominant. From 
these writings he passed to didactic works, — his 
"Levana," and "iEsthetic School." He crammed 
his pages with the results of the most multifarious 
reading, so that, sometimes, to understand one of 
his stories, childish enough in its substance, you 
must be something of a geologist, a chemist, an 
astronomer, a natural historian, and an antiqua- 
rian. If a deluge should break in upon some old 
museums, and bear away on its billows promiscu- 
ously-scattered curiosities in all the sciences, it 
might give you a symbol of his style. Or, if you 
should collect some hundreds of multifarious similes 
and allusions from works of science, old histories, 
and modern newspapers, — put them together and 
shake them well in a bag, — then write a story to 
employ them all as they came to hand, you would 
make some approach to Jean Paul's style. Indeed, 
we believe that he actually wrote on a plan very 
similar to that just suggested ! But we must add 
some justification of our opinion of Richter, re- 
garded as a complete poet ; because he has been 
styled, by his German readers, not only a poet but 
a giant-poet; and also because, in excluding his 
writings from our definition of a true and finished 
poetry, we shut out a great number of imaginative 
prose writers. We must, therefore, say something 
towards proving that our definition is not of an 
arbitrary character. 

We are not inclined, for a moment, to deny the 
wonderful fertility of Richter's genius, his far- 
reaching thoughts, adorned with lavish imagery, 
and sentiments full of good- will to mankind. All 
that we say is, that he was not a finished poet ; and 
our criticism may be summed up in the epigram 
which Goethe addressed to him : — " You would 
indeed be worthy of admiration, if you made as 
good use of your riches as others make of their 
poverty." 

If we could employ the title of poet as cheaply 
as it is generally employed by the Germans, we 
must include in our notices a considerable number 



of novelists, tourists, and other prose- writers ; but 
we cannot assent to that loose and vague definition 
of poetry which has been fashionable lately, and 
which would rank our modern novelists, such as 
James, D'Israeli, and Mrs. Gore, among the poets 
of England. We hold another definition of poetry. 
In our view the poet is one who not only possesses 
high imagination and deep feeling, but has also the 
ability to express his thoughts in language so 
genial, so musical, and well-finished, that it becomes 
classical. We do not consider metre and rhyme 
as idle ornaments, which may easily be omitted 
without any serious detriment to a poetical pro- 
duction. We believe them to be co-natural gifts 
with the imagination of a true poet, and essentially 
necessary to the completion of his character. On 
this point we hold exactly the view which Mr. 
Hunt has cleverly propounded in his late volume, 
entitled " Imagination and Fancy," from which we 
quote the following paragraph : — 

"It has been contended by some that poetry 
need not be written in verse at all ; but this is a 
prosaical mistake. Fitness and unfitness for song, 
or metrical excitement, just makes all the differ- 
ence between a poetical and a prosaical subject ; 
and the reason why verse is necessary to the form 
of poetry, is that the perfection of the poetical 
spirit demands it ; that the circle of its enthusiasm, 
beauty, and power, is incomplete without it. I do 
not mean to say that a poet can never show him- 
self a poet in prose ; but that, being one, his desire 
and necessity will be to write in verse, and that, if 
he were unable to do so, he would not and could 
not deserve his title. Verse to the true poet is no 
clog. It is idly called a trammel and a difficulty. 
It is a help. It springs from the same enthusiasm 
as the rest of his impulses, and is necessary to 
their satisfaction and effect. Verse is no more a 
clog than the condition of rushing upward is a clog 
to fire, or than the roundness and order of the 
globe we live on, is a clog to the freedom and 
variety that abound within its sphere. Verse is 
the final proof to the poet that his mastery over 
his art is complete. It is the shutting-up of his 
powers in 'measureful content.' Poetry, in its 
complete sympathy with beauty, must, of neces- 
sity, leave no sense of the beautiful, and no power 
over its forms unmanifested ; and verse flows as 
inevitably from this condition of its integrity as 
other laws of proportion do from any other kind 
of embodiment of beauty. — Every poet, then, is a 
versifier ; every fine poet is an excellent one ; and 
he is the best whose verse exhibits the greatest 
amount of strength, sweetness, straightforward- 
ness, unsuperfluousness, variety, and oneness ; — 
oneness, that is to say, consistency in the general 
impression, metrical and moral ; and variety, or 
every pertinent diversity of tone and rhythm in 
the process." 

With these remarks we fully concur, and ac- 
cordingly, we at once strike from the German 
roll of poets a great number of imaginative prose- 
writers, vaguely styled " Dichter^ or poets. We 
protest against this loose application of a noble 
term. True, complete poets are not, never were, 
and never will be so common as this vague German 
style of speaking would represent. Let every func- 
tion have its proper name. Here then, on the 
strength of the above-stated principle, with one 
fell swoop of the pen we strike from our list of 



14 



KOTZEBUE.— GOETHE.-SCHILLER. 



poets a host of German novelists ; but, worse still, 
what will the nation of German readers say when 
we tell them that their loved and lauded "Dichter" 
Jean Paul, was not a complete poet ? We take our 
stand upon the principle stated by Mr. Hunt, and 
defy a host of vague admirers of Jean Paul to 
move us from our position. Where is the page of 
fine imagination, in finely-moulded and finished 
language, that you can bring against us ? 

In saying this, we do not, of course, interfere 
with his character as a thinker, a humourist, or a 
novelist — that lies out of our province ; but we 
must hold, in its full integrity, the high definition 
which we have stated, remembering that when the 
fine arts become intermingled and confused, it is a 
sign of decay. 

In contrast with Richter, we may mention his 
friend Herder, who possessed the gift of a fluent 
versification, but failed in original, poetical inven- 
tion. 

John Gottfried Herder was a rich and amiable 
specimen of the German literary character ; yet, 
as a poet, he cannot claim a very high station. 
The characteristic of his mind was a wide recep- 
tiveness or extensive sympathy. He could appre- 
ciate an excellence which he could not produce. 
The array of poetical riches from many lands, with 
which his mind was surrounded, served to reflect, 
in many hues, the ray of his genius, as the clouds 
reflect the beam of the declining sun ; but his was 
not the genius which could put all the clouds to 
flight and rejoice in its own original lustre. 

Kotzebue, perhaps, demands a short notice for 
his literary fecundity ; but he never rose above 
German mediocrity. We must admit that his 
department as a dramatic writer for the actual 
stage closely limited him. To write good domestic 
comedies was no easy matter in a country where 
no metropolis gave a prevailing conversational 
tone, where social life was so tame, and political 
regulations allowed nothing like vigorous satire. 

But we must return to greater names. Schiller, 
like Goethe, was bewildered in his youth, unde- 
cided in life, character, and genius. His " Rob- 
bers," of course, produced a school of a robbers !" 
but in his " Don Carlos " he expressed a clearer 
and more elevated mind. About the same time, 
Goethe gave the results of his classic and studious 
mood in " Iphigenia " and " Tasso," both, at first, 
written in prose, which may, in some degree, 
account for their peculiarly sober and chastened 
character. These were beautiful productions. 
They show a delicate receptiveness of impressions 
from ancient literature and studies of character, 
combined with a most genial faculty of imitation ; 
but was this the true style of imitation ? Did 
Goethe do for his time what the ancient poets did 
for their time ? Had he original vigour of genius 
to make true progress in the development of 
poetry, or did he consider that the characteristic 
of his age must be to have no character, but to 
lose all distinct and peculiar existence in universal 
contemplation ? We shall consider these queries 
when we have finished our short review of his 
career. 

The most interesting feature in the history of 
German Poetry is the friendship of Goethe and 
Schiller, — the resting man and the striving man. 
The French Revolution had disturbed the poetical 
activity of the former. Since writing his " Gotz," 



he had, in a great measure, lost his interest in 
political history. Meanwhile, Schiller, who was 
distinguished from Goethe by a warm interest in 
political and philosophical inquiries, had been led 
away from poetry into the study of Kant's philo- 
sophy. Goethe returned from his visit to Italy 
with his mind full of the peaceful images of 
ancient art : he preferred the quiet past, which 
he could calmly contemplate and understand, to 
the present commotions of the political world, 
which only bewildered him. As his good mother 
had practised the principle of keeping all alarming 
accidents and startling occurrences from the eyes 
and ears of her child, he imitated her in sheltering 
his poetry from all the rude disturbances of actual 
life. He did not break out into violent declama- 
tions against the French revolution ; he simply 
considered it as a most unpoetical occurrence ; 
something absurd, senseless, and decidedly un- 
pleasant, and so he turned his back upon it, and 
quietly went on with his versification of " Reynard 
the Fox." " There is some sense in this ! " said he 
to himself. For a poet, a man endowed with 
warmth of feeling and vigour of imagination, 
Goethe carried his love of all things sober and 
practical (a somewhat refined utilitarianism) to a 
humorous degree, and his quiet contempt for 
everything pompously grand, extravagant, and 
useless, was often cleverly expressed. The esoteric 
doctrine which gleams through many passages in 
his writings and conversations would teach us 
that it is the characteristic of all truth to make 
itself useful for the actual moment, and that all 
the truth, indeed, of every doctrine, lies in its ap- 
plicable meaning and utility for the present. With 
this view, he would not enter into any high specu- 
lations which only referred to the possible, nor 
make any inquiry even into such a doctrine as the 
immortality of the soul, any further than to employ 
it as a source of present comfort. 

The anecdote is well known, but we may tell it 
again as illustrative of his humour : — When Tiedge's 
" Urania " had set all the blue-stockings talking 
of a future state, one of these ladies, finding Goethe 
rather cool in his admiration of the poem, said to 
him, " Why, Herr Goethe, I fear you do not be- 
lieve in the immortality of the soul ! " "I almost 
hope that it will not prove true," he replied, " for 
if one ever gets into heaven, he will be pestered 
by a crowd of Tiedge's admirers turning upon 
him with, * Now, Herr Goethe, you see we were 
right in our belief !'" 

We return to relate the progress of Goethe's 
writings. During the revolutionary period, as he 
had always been accustomed to express in his 
verses the various sentiments excited in him by 
outward occurrences, he could not avoid, now, 
making some reference to the times in his own 
sly, quiet way. His works of this period affect a 
certain species of humour, and imply some delicate 
satire, indistinctly expressed, upon political conr 
tentions. But little that is genial and spontaneous 
can be found in these poems. In " Hermann and 
Dorothea," however, he gives us a capital little 
epic, which has been popular in Germany, though 
it is too quiet (and we might almost say too good) 
to captivate the English taste. It combines quiet 
life Avith the epic character, and, from the small 
circle of its events, comprised within one summer's 
day, glances cleverly at the revolution and its 



GOETHE AND SCHILLER. 



15 



consequences. Its moral is the best of all morals: — 
the triumph of true love. About this time Schiller 
fell into historical and reflective studies : — the 
fruits were his " History of the Thirty Years' 
War" and his "./Esthetic Letters." Schiller always 
laboured to understand himself, and tried to give 
reasons for all the variations in his poetry. Goethe 
cared very little about all this laborious analysis 
and criticism. As he tells us, hi an epigram, he 
liked better to reason forwards, starting with " be- 
cause" than to go backwards with the query 
" why 1 " Both Goethe and Schiller had the same 
mark of poetic perfection before them ; but they 
proceeded towards it by different ways. They 
aimed to restore that union between reason and 
the senses, nature and culture, the real and the 
ideal, which they found in the arts and poetry of 
ancient Greece : but Schiller did laboriously, and 
with science, what Goethe did easily from instinct. 
Schiller returned from philosophy to poetry, but 
brought some of the elements of his philosophy 
into his poetry, and gave, even to his lyrics, a 
didactic character. Goethe, in his unstudied 
effusions, formed a contrast to his friend, as we 
see best in his " Roman Elegies," his " Venetian 
Epigrams " and his " Alexis and Dora," all easily- 
flowing strains. 

In their dramatic productions, this contrast 
equally revealed itself. Goethe disliked the earnest 
concentrated effort which a tragedy required. He 
therefore had sought a discursive subject, where 
his mind might wander freely through various 
regions of thought, arriving, by a round-about 
way, at the appointed goal. Such a theme he 
found in " Wilhelm Meister," the tale of a young 
man's education, of which so much has been said 
and written, that we need not enter into any long 
disquisition upon its merits. It illustrates the 
process by which the young hero is led from the 
error of expecting to find somewhere a world 
suited to his own ideal views, to the true method 
of thinking for himself, and so making a world for 
himself. Beside this, the universal Goethe begun 
an epic in the Homeric vein, entitled "Achilleis;" 
but left it a fragment. Next he translated several 
dramas, "Phaedra," "Mahomet," and "Tancred" 
from the French. Meanwhile Schiller maintained 
his originality in " Wallenstein," " Maria Stuart," 
" The Maid of Orleans," " The Bride of Messina," 
and " William Tell." The main fault pervading 
all these dramas is their studied production : — the 
fine careless mastery of nature which Shakspeare 
has exhibited in "As You Like it" and other 
plays, remains, after all that Goethe and Schiller 
have done, infinitely beyond the range of the 
German drama. 

At the turning point of the eighteenth and nine- 
teenth centuries, Weimar was the metropolis of 
German literature. From this centre a wide 
influence diffused itself over the land, and among 
the writers moved by it were Novalis, the bro- 
thers Augustus and Frederick Schlegel, Kosegar- 
ten,Baggesen, Matthison, Salis, Tieck, OShlenschla- 
ger, Werner, Falk, Kleist, and the yomig and 
gallant Korner. 

Goethe had always a tendency to fall back into 
quietism, and when deprived of the stimulating 
exhortations of Schiller he withdrew, in a great 
measure, from the field of poetry, and occupied 
himself with botany, comparative anatomy, and his 



doctrine of colours. In 1811, his literary biogra- 
phy, " Poetry and Truth," appeared. In his poetry 
of this period he made a transition, in opposition 
to his own principles, from the clear to the mys- 
tical, from the intuitive and sensuous to the abstract 
and speculative. In " Wilhelm Meister " we see 
the beginnings of this mysterious style. In his 
" Wahlverwandschaften " we see a southern work 
in contrast with the natural productions of his 
earlier years. In his old age he fell deeper and 
deeper into what we may designate as German Ca- 
tholicism, — the absence of all particular, temporary, 
and exclusive interest in his writings. During 
that stirring period in German history, the years 
of liberation, with his characteristic shrinking out 
of the active interest of the times, he hid himself 
in oriental reveries, and gave the nation, unused 
to strong exertion, the signal to pass into the ex- 
treme opposite to their late engagements, — from 
fatherland to the East, from freedom to despotism, 
and from activity to quietism. Von Hammer's 
translation of the Persian Anacreon, Hafiz, was 
the motive to this humour. The " West-Indian 
Divan" made an epoch in German poetry, and 
gave it an oriental character, which we may trace 
in the productions of Riickert and Freiligrath. 
Platen and Riickert especially followed in the 
steps of the German Hafiz, and now beauty of 
form and polish of versification were considered 
above mere importance of topics in their ghazels 
and oriental lyrics. For a second time German 
poetry showed its indifference to military themes, 
by falling into strains of beauty and delicacy during 
a time of great warlike movements. This was the 
case in the days of the Minnesingers, and Riick- 
ert's poetry sometimes recalls them to memory. 

These oriental lyrics were not the only symp- 
toms, at this period, of a literature setting reality 
at defiance and making a world of its own. Even 
in a time which afforded a great store of materials 
of poetical interest, the romantic school kept to its 
own fancies. Fouque's romances of chivalry, and 
Hoffmann's tales of diablerie, appeared at this 
time. The tragedies of Mullner, Grillparzer, and 
Houwald followed in the steps of Werner and ruined 
the character of the German theatre. The old 
master of German poetry looked upon these pro- 
ductions of the day with displeasure, and shook his 
head in dissatisfaction at the spectral illusions of 
Hoffmann and the romantic flights of Fouque. 

Tieck returned from magic, antiquities, and mar- 
vels, which had formed the staple commodities of 
his novel-writing, to illustrate modern society. 
Sir Walter Scott's historical romances power- 
fully discouraged the aberrations of the romantic 
school. The historical drama was revived in all 
the provinces of Germany, and comedy, at Berlin, 
made sport of the exaggerated fancies of the 
romantic writers. 

After this period, we find the new generation of 
poets as much occupied with the circumstances of 
actual society as their predecessors had been 
indifferent towards them. Many we have seen 
beginning as poets and sinking down into politicians 
and social reformers. It is hard to characterise 
the present day ; but one of its most striking fea- 
tures is its warm interest in its own reformation, 
and this leaves little room for the free exercise of 
the imagination. Goethe lived to see the com- 
mencement of this transition, and has made some 



16 



GOETHE. 



mystical allusions to it in the second part of his 
" Faust." In this production, as in his " Wander- 
jahre," we have a remarkable instance of literary 
productiveness sustained in an extraordinary old 
age for a poet : as to their inner worth and mean- 
ing there has been much variety of opinion. They 
certainly carry out, to a great extent, the poet's 
favourite canon of art, — that in every work some- 
thing should always be left to be divined by the 
reverent and teachable student : — that over every 
revelation of genius there should be thrown some 
veil of mystery, with the motto, — 

Odi profanum vulgus et arceo. 

But Goethe fills such a place in the literature 
of his country that we must devote a few chapters 
to his best works. 



CHAPTER IV. 



Goethe ! — Dare we attempt an exposition of 
this many-sided intellect which seems to have 
puzzled even the Germans themselves ? 

" There is only one man in Germany who under- 
stands me, and he does not understand me well I " 
Such was the reported dying speech of a great 
metaphysician. To understand Goethe seems i^o 
have been an equal labour ; for a whole library 
has been written as a commentary upon his cha- 
racter and works. Of those who have assisted 
in this stupendous undertaking we may men- 
tion, Falk, Eckermann, Schutz, Zauper, Gutzkow, 
Enk, Lewitz, Menzel, Schubarth, Mrs. Austin, and 
Thomas Carlyle, beside a host of periodical critics. 
Goethe has been almost deified by some and un- 
deservedly vilified by others. While some have 
found in him the beau-ideal of the poet and the 
literary character, others have represented him as 
an insincere man and but a second-rate poet. A 
French writer calls him a self-made poet, and very 
prettily says, " It was on a fine day, when the sun 
shone clearly, the flowers were sporting with the 
kissing winds, and the birds were singing in con- 
cert with the brooks, &c., that Goethe walked out 
and said, ( I will be a poet ! ' and he fulfilled his 
resolution." Very pretty indeed ! We should like 
to see this Frenchman, or any other similar critic, 
take a walk out some fine summer's morning, and, 
after listening to the birds, &c. say, " I, too, will be 
a poet ! " then come home and write " Tasso," or 
" Iphigenia," or " Faust :" it would be a rare result 
of a morning's ramble, and a strong proof of the 
power of the will. 

But others have treated Goethe in a style still 
worse. A celebrated Scotch writer, generally true 
and genial in his poetical criticism, once called the 
author of "Faust" "the master of humbug." 
Another writer, in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," 
gives almost as low an estimate of Goethe's 
genius. He says, " If Goethe had died in the 
year 1785, would Europe have been sensible of the 
event ? Not at all : — it would have been obscurely 
noticed in the newspapers as the death of a novelist 
who had produced some effect about ten years 
before. In 1832, it was announced, by the post- 
horns of all Europe, as the death of him who 
had written i Wilhelm Meister,' ' Iphigenia,' and 



' Faust,' and who had been enthroned by some of 
his admirers on the same seat with Homer and 
Shakspeare, as composing what they termed c the 
trinity of men of genius.' And yet it is a fact 
that, in the opinion of some among the acknow- 
ledged leaders of our own literature, the ' Werter' 
was, in power, superior to all which followed it. 
The reputation of" Goethe must decline for the 
next generation or two, until it reaches its just 
level." This is vague, impertinent prophecy, in- 
stead of definite and clear criticism. 

On the other side, Goethe has had warm ad- 
mirers, and some extravagant ones. He was not 
the man to match himself with Shakspeare ; he 
had more good sense ; but some of his admirers 
have done this. One of the most ardent, but, at 
the same time, reasonable, of his admirers is 
Thomas Carlyle, who has enthusiastically endea- 
voured to explain to others the wisdom, purity, 
and beauty, which he has found in the study of 
Goethe's writings. Now, in spite of this dissension 
among the critics, we cannot see anything so very 
puzzling in the characteristics of this celebrated 
man. Before we notice them, however, we may 
give some short account of the poet's fife. Here, 
as in the fives of German literary characters gene- 
rally, reigns the old quietude. 

No " moving accidents by land or flood " diver- 
sified our poets' career ; and yet he could make a 
volume of autobiography out of his childhood ! He 
was born in that relic of the middle ages, the anti- 
quarian town of Frankfort on the Maine, on the 
28th of August, 1749, and was the only son of his 
father, a respectable and educated man. Of his 
childhood a very genial and interesting account 
may be found in his autobiography. His youth 
passed away during stirring times in Frankfort, 
where ancient and modern fife seemed to meet. 

He went to Leipsic to study the law, but, pro- 
bably, made no great progress ; for these were the 
days for sowing his "wild oats." In 1768 he re- 
turned to his father's house in ill health. He next 
went to Strasburgh to complete his studies, and 
there gained a doctor's degree. Here he became 
the friend of the learned and amiable Herder, 
whose converse enlarged young Goethe's ideas of 
poetry. After his return from Strasburgh to his 
father's house, he resided at Wetzlar and Offen- 
bach with some relatives, and practised writing in 
the periodicals until, in 1773, his first remarkable 
publication, " Gotz von Berlichingen," appeared. 

This was a drama of the middle-ages, and at 
once established the fame of the young poet. In 
1774 appeared "The Sorrows of Werter," which 
spread the passion for whining in prose and verse 
throughout imitative Germany. It has power and 
beauty of language ; and this is the best thing we 
can say of it. But it excited the interest of the 
Prince of Weimar, who, soon afterwards, on a visit 
to Frankfort, became acquainted with Goethe, 
and, on taking the government, invited the poet to 
Weimar and installed him in an honourable office. 
Goethe loved aristocracy for its elegance and 
comfort ; he knew that poetry is a very charming 
occupation with the accompaniment of princely 
patronage. In England he might, possibly, have 
gained, like Burns, an exciseman's place ; but the 
chances would have been against him. But let us 
make no odious comparisons. In 1777 he attended 
the Duchess of Weimar on her tour in Switzer- 



GOETHE. 



17 



land, and in 1782 was created a member of the 
German aristocracy. 

In 1786, he made a journey to Italy, and spent, 
no doubt happily, two years chiefly in Rome, dur- 
ing which time he paid a visit to Sicily. During 
all these gay years the poet remained a bachelor. 
" All my poems," said he, " have had a basis in 
reality." If we applied this saying to his Italian 
and Venetian epigrams, we might think that the 
poet had lived an epicurean life in the south ; but 
Ave must charitably suppose them to be mere imi- 
tations of the classic poets ; for Goethe had a 
mind like a mirror that would reflect anything. 

In his fifty-seventh year he married a lady of 
the name of Vulpius. None of his children sur- 
vived him, which seems to confirm, in some degree, 
the melancholy hypothesis of a writer in the 
" Quarterly Review " — that the families of men of 
genius soon become extinct. He lived quietly 
through disturbed times, and paid a second visit to 
Italy. After this he resided chiefly at Weimar, 
and paid much attention to the interests of the 
theatre there. He was Minister of State for 
Weimar until 1828, when, on the death of his 
patron, he withdrew from all the affairs of govern- 
ment. 

After a short illness, he died at Weimar, on the 
22d of March, 1833. He preserved his faculties 
to the last hour ; and, a short time before his 
death, expressed his pleasure in the re-appearing 
signs of spring. His remains were buried in the 
royal vault, near the coffins of his friend, the 
prince, and Schiller, the poet. 

In his person Goethe was remarkable and noble. 
Few could look upon him, for the first time, with- 
out feeling that they were in the presence of a 
superior man. In his conversation he was varied, 
agreeable, and interesting ; and even the stranger 
soon felt at ease in his company. He had no wish 
to impose the greatness of his fame, like a load, 
upon his admiring visitor ; but would soon drive 
away all embarrassment by engaging in cheerful 
and unpretending chat on some subject of common 
interest. The weather was one of his darling 
topics ; and the Englishman or the American who 
had, with reverence and timidity, approached the 
mansion at Weimar, where lived the writer of 
" Faust " and fifty volumes beside, was agreeably 
surprised to find the poet of diablerie no grim per- 
sonage, like an alchemist of the middle-ages, but a 
quiet, elegant old gentleman, in a good suit of 
black cloth and with a star upon his breast, who 
would sit down beside his visitor, and, after a few 
remarks on the state of the weather at Weimar, 
express his interest and curiosity concerning the 
climate of England or America, and listen, with 
solemn respect and attention, to any information 
which the traveller could give upon the topic. 

In his philosophy Goethe was a refined Utilitarian 
or Epicurean ; with something of Ben tham's theory, 
he had more that Bentham never dreamed of. He 
believed in the utility of poetry and of all that tends 
to cultivate the finer faculties of the mind. If he 
cultivated imaginative literature, he believed that 
nothing was more useful, or, in other words, more 
conducive to a happy state of existence than a well- 
stored imagination. He secretly honoured more a 
hearty peasant girl who performs her duties well 
and lives cheerfully, than a restless politician, who 
only makes noise and disturbance in the world. 



He loved the court of Weimar, because under its 
protecting shade he could cultivate and enjoy the 
beautiful in art and literature. He preferred the 
beautiful before the sublime, and the real before 
the possible. He would have nothing to do with 
theories of a future and supernatural life, any 
further than he could apply them to present useful 
purposes. Thus he held that the immortality of 
the soul was a good doctrine — why ? not because 
he was convinced of it by any learned, metaphysical 
treatise, but because it elevates and consoles the 
heart amid the troubles of the present life. Thus 
he reveres the scriptures, because, as he tells us in 
" Hermann and Dorothea," they tell us much of 
human character and make us wise in the lore of 
human life ! 

Goethe loved quiet, and was no more in love 
with battles than Wordsworth's "Shepherd Lord." 
His quiet humour is apparent in the following 
lines : 

I know not better talk for leisure-hours 
Than news of battles raging far away, 
Where in the sultry east, some rival powers 
Are restlessly contending for the day. 

You hear the news and then sip up your glass, 
Look from your window on the river near, 
Sprinkled with quiet ships, then say, ' Alas ! 
A sad thing war ! thank God that we live here ! ' 

Amid his poetic flights and other literary occu- 
pations, Goethe had nothing of that contempt for 
little sublunary things which characterised the 
Cynic philosophy. 

Nothing was too little for his notice, if it had a 
trace of goodness in it. He had the love of order 
generally said to characterise old maids, and could 
almost find his papers and other moveables in the 
dark. 

" A clean, well lighted and tidy dwelling room," 
says he, " is one of the primal necessaries of human 
life." He cordially approved of the old copy-book 
maxim, "Everything in its proper time and place." 

In " Wilhelm Meister " he gives us an account 
of a profligate woman and her neglect of domestic 
neatness and economy ; and, from the terms he 
employs, we may almost guess that he accounts 
the latter fault as heinous as her more notorious 
vices. This peculiarity insinuates itself into many 
pages of his writings. Thus, in " Hermann and 
Dorothea," he finds pathos in the waggon-load of 
household-furniture thrown together in a disorderly 
mass, and remembers how neatly it was once 
arranged in the forsaken homes of the emigrants. 
Again, one of the traits of character with which 
he adorns "Dorothea," is her coming some dis- 
tance to the fountain for pure water, rather than 
dipping her bucket into the sullied spring near at 
hand. 

Goethe was not the poet whose eye, 

" in a fine frenzy rolling," 

overlooked common and earthly things, and turned 
upwards to some visionary world. He wrote 
poetry all his life, and was yet — a tidy man ! He 
never came down stairs rich with new morning- 
thoughts for a drama, and — with his stockings 
about his heels ! He never wrote sonnets — with 
a three-days' beard upon his chin ! He washed, 
and dressed in as orderly a style when he went to 



18 



GOETHE. 



his writing-desk, as if he were going to attend a 
levee at the court of Weimar. 

With regard to his religious views, they may 
be inferred from what has been said of his philo- 
sophy. Old preachers used to divide their sermons 
into two principal parts, one containing the doc- 
trines of the text, and the other its uses : if Goethe 
had preached, he would have confined his exposi- 
tions to the latter part. His supposed Pantheism 
is found in many passages of his poetry ; but it is 
most probable -that he had no very strict or de- 
finite ideas on the subject. He disapproved of 
Hegel's "Philosophy of Religion," and took no 
great pains to understand the metaphysical systems 
which were celebrated in his day. One of his 
commentators, Zauper, bears testimony to the 
poet's expression of devotional feeling, and this he 
does with a solemnity rather ludicrous : he de- 
poses to the fact, that he once had the privilege of 
hearing the poet, (if we remember rightly,) while 
contemplating in the open air, speak, with a 
deeply devotional aspect, of the Creator's good- 
ness, and assures us that such a sentiment, uttered 
by such a man, produced no common impression 
upon his mind ! 

Whatever may have been Goethe's theoretical 
religion, it was practically Epicurean, in the re- 
fined and intellectual sense of that term. He 
would not have written " Paradise Lost," even 
had he possessed Milton's genius ; for he did not 
see the utility of lamenting past evils. His philo- 
sophy of cheerfulness, finding good in everything, 
may be found in many of his occasional lyrics and 
epigrams. 

He was not the poet to mourn over the ruins of 
the past, or to spend his strains in depicting the 
miseries of the present. He blames those who, 
as he says, see only " death in death." His muse, 
like the bee on the wall-flower, can suck sweetness 
from that which only tells of decay, as we see in 
the following simple verses, on a ruined castle. 
How different would have been the strain of our 
sweet, but monotonous poetess, Mrs. Hemans, on 
such a theme ! She would only have read a me- 
lancholy lesson of death in the gray stones ; but 
Goethe, with true Epicurean philosophy, wakens 
the echoes of the old place to sounds of life and 
love with his music. 

THE CASTLE ON THE HILL. 

On yonder rocky hill, 

There stands a castle gray, 
Behind its iron gates 

Stood knights in steel array. 

But doors and gates are gone, 

And stillness is around ; 
I wander as I will 

Upon the stony ground. 

See ! here was once the cellar, 

Well filled with costly wine, 
Where the butler often came 

When knights and squires would dine. 

The castle-maid no more 

Fills the gay carouser's glass, 
Nor the flask of the old priest, 

As he goes to sing the mass. 

She reaches to the squire 

No more the stirrup-cup, 
Nor takes, for pay, a kiss, 

When the squire has drunk it up. 



The halls, once filled with laughter, 

Are open to the sky, 
And stair-case, court, and chapel 

In dust and ruins lie. 

I spent a summer's day 

Upon this ancient ground, 
My love and I were climbing 

Upon the castle's mound. 

The sound of pleasure broke 

The old gray ruin's rest, 
As in the ancient time 

When the castle had a guest. 

It seem'd as if the guests 

Were all assembled there, 
As in the olden day, 

To greet a bridal pair. 

And there stood in the chapel, 

The priest devout and gray, 
And asked us " will you wed ? " — 

We smil'd, and answered ' ' yea ! " 

Then songs began to sound 

And stirred our bosoms' deep, 
The echoes all around 

Were startled from their sleep. 

Goethe's interest in literature and science was 
universal. As far as nature extended, his sympa- 
thies flowed. Botany, mineralogy, meteorology, 
natural history, and other studies remote from the 
dream-land of German poetry, occupied his atten- 
tion. He could sympathise far beyond the limits 
of his own individual character ; and, though he 
could not produce like Shakspeare, could appre- 
ciate what the great dramatic poet had created. 
He could sympathise with Byron, whom he over- 
rated ; though two men could scarcely be more 
dissimilar than the poet of " Tasso " and the poet 
of « Childe Harold." 

His capability of entering into the experience 
of characters remote from his own we see in his 
Confessions of a Religious Young Lady, in " Wil- 
helm Meister." If he had resided at Herrnhut, 
among the Moravians, he could hardly have writ- 
ten more truly. From such psychological curiosi- 
ties he could turn his attention to natural pheno- 
mena ; would spend a day in collecting wild plants, 
or beguile an hour by watching the movements of 
a petted snake. From this he could turn to write 
a playful letter to the romantic child Bettina, 
whose truly German attachment to the old poet of 
Weimar is well known. 

He knew the spirit of Bach's peculiar music, 
and his criticisms on paintings are excellent. His 
work on the Doctrine of Colours, translated^ by 
Eastlake, proves his capacity for such investiga- 
tions. Of his remarkably fine imitative faculty, 
we see instances in his " Iphigenia " and his 
oriental lyrics. He could drink in the very spirit 
of a poetical era, and then breathe it forth in a 
new creation. But this fine imitative power was 
not creative, forward-going genius ; and it has been 
said, with some truth, that " Goethe's works, like 
marble-statues, adorn Germany's Walhalla ; but 
will never produce an act." 

The mysticism found in some of his writings 
arose not always from a want of clear meaning 
and purpose, but from that feeling which Sir 
Walter Scott, in one of his prefaces, calls " a love 
of delitescence," which is not easily to be ex- 



plained. Thus he confesses, in his correspondence 
with Schiller, that he loved to travel incognito, and 
to be taken for an insignificant personage ; that he 
loved to talk, in general, on common and trivial 
matters, rather than on subjects in which he felt a 
deep interest. During their friendship, Schiller 
acquainted Goethe with the progress of all his 
writings ; but Goethe completed his " Hermann 
and Dorothea '* before he even mentioned the 
design to Schiller. His doctrine on this subject is 
to be found in " Wilhelm Meister." He thought 
that all good, effective impulses must spring from 
a man's own breast, and not be forced upon him 
by another ; and that, therefore, the work of the 
writer should be to suggest, to animate, and to 
encourage, rather than drily and magisterially to 
enforce his doctrines upon the reader. There is 
truth in this. It must be alloAved that if he did 
not rise to the highest proof of original genius in 
any one style of production, the wide extent of his 
faculties and the number of objects grasped in his 
range of knowledge and sympathy, display a re- 
markable mind. 

His writings are voluminous, and, of course, 
contain repetitions of ideas ; it cannot be expected 
that they will all enjoy a long life ; but something 
of the spirit of beauty which is embodied in them 
will certainly survive. In his refining influence 
on the literature of his own country, Goethe can 
hardly be over-rated ; but his creations are not 
sufficiently bold and original to win, as some have 
predicted, the admiration of the world. 

In none of his productions does Goethe so 
clearly display the poet as in his short, unpretend- 
ing lyrics ; but their substance is so closely linked 
to their form, that to translate many of them 
fairly is as difficult as it is to remove delicate 
exotics from their native soil, without injury to 
their health and beauty. 

The " King in Thule " may serve as one brief 
specimen of Goethe's lyrics : — 

THE KING IN THULE. 

There was a king in Thule, 
True and faithful to his grave ; 

To him his dying lady 
A golden goblet gave. 

And more than all his treasures 

He prized the golden cup ; 
His eyes with tears ran over 

Whene'er he held it up. 

When he felt that he was dying, 

His wealth he reckoned up, 
And left all things to his heirs — 

Except the golden cup ! 

He sat at the banquet-table, 

With his knightly company, 
In the old paternal hall 

Of his castle by the sea. 

He stood and drained the cup, 

To warm his aged blood ; 
Then threw the golden goblet 

From his hand into the flood. 

He saw it fall and fill, 

And sink in the blue main, 
Then folded down his eyelids, 

And never drank again ! 



Of the celebrated poem "Faust," which has 
been translated, imitated, and criticised usque ad 
fcauseam, we shall say very little. Of many of its 
mysterious passages (for instance, those in the 
" Witch's Kitchen "), we have a full explanation 
in the confession of the writer — " there is a good 
deal of crazy stuff in it! " Its general lesson seems 
to be that a vague, wild, intellectual ambition is 
apt to degenerate into sensuality and crime. We 
find the very same lesson in the confessions of 
Solomon. 

This " Faust" takes a strong hold of youthful and 
poetic minds. The poor mystified student, like 
many a young poet, has lost, in the labyrinths of 
his fruitless philosophy, that world of early bright- 
ness which our poet tells of. 

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight, 

To me did seem 
Apparelled in celestial light, 
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 
It is not now as it hath been of yore ; — 
Turn wheresoe'er I may 
By night or day, 
The things that I have seen I now can see no more. 

So he has just got to the stage of thought where 
Solomon cried out " vanity of vanities 1 " and in 
comes Mephistopheles ! This embodiment of that 
all-caricaturing, scornful, sceptic spirit of the day ; 
that genius of disappointment, contradiction, and 
hindrance, whose logic always begins with " but," 
and ends with the proposition — " everything equals 
nothing " — is Goethe's great feat. 

The second part of this eccentric work has been 
generally accounted a greater display of the art of 
mystifying than the first. Doubtless, however, 
Goethe had his meaning here amid all the jargon of 
Mephistopheles with Homunculus and the Sphinxes 
— the Syrens, Thales, Anaxagoras, Nereus, Pro- 
teus, and the Oreads. Goethe has been accused, 
and not without reason, of a liking for the Greek 
mythology ; he often writes so as to intimate his 
desire for the fulfilment of the prediction of a 
philosophic school in his day, " that the gloom and 
severity of Christianity must be merged in the 
liveliness and beauty of the old Greek religion." 
He certainly seems, sometimes, to sympathise with 
the fall of idol-temples and polytheistic art under 
the zeal of Christianity, as in his " Goldsmith of 
Ephesus." 

In Ephesus a Goldsmith sat 

Plying his task so fine : — 
The work that he was bus ( y at 

Was great Diana's shrine. 
In her temple he had knelt 

Devout and wondering, when a boy ; 
Now to frame her curious belt 

With patient care was his employ. 
And so, in quiet artist-strife, 
The Goldsmith led a pious life. 

Then, suddenly, he heard a sound 

Along the streets, and all around, 

For lo ! the folk had just now found, 

Within some mortal's head, 

A deity more dread 

Than the great whole, in which we see 

The unfolded breadth of deity. 

The Goldsmith would not leave his seat ; 
His youngsters ran into the street : 



20 



GOETHE. 



Embossing heads of deer was he, 

To circle round Diana's knee, 

And hoping Heaven would lend him grace 

Truly to mould her beauteous face, 

The artist's doctrine if you scout, 

Pray, let the art remain ; 
However you the doctrine doubt 

The art is surely gain. 

Those who remember the sad close of the 
former part of " Faust " will think that he escapes 
too lightly from" his remorse, when they read the 
opening of the second part. Here we find him 
reclining on a flowery bank, and surrounded by 
ministering sprites, who lull him to sleep with the 
melody of seolian harps. 



When the bloomy showers of spring 

Hover round, and lightly fall, 
While sweet meadows blossoming, 

Blessings yield to mortals all ; 
Gentle fairies — spirits light, 

Hasten, where their help is needed, 
Be he good or wicked wight — 

None distress'd is left unheeded. 

In airy rings, around this mortal's head, 
Ye generous elves, your nightly watches spread, 
Allay the bitter strife that tears his heart, 
And ward away remorseful poisonous dart ; 
His bosom cleanse from all experienced grief, 
And give him sweet, secure, and full relief ; 
Four are the pauses of the soothing night, 
Now to your posts, you elfins glad and light ! 
Soft be his pillow, while with Lethe's wave, 
His cramp 'd and stiffen'd weary limbs you lave. 
Discharge your elfin duties right, 
And give him back to holy light. 

CHOrR OF ELVES. 

When along the blooming dale, 

Soft warm winds are lightly roaming, 

Wrapt in shadowy, misty veil, 
Gently steals along the gloaming 
Whispering peace to every breast, 
Cradling hearts in child-like rest, 
And for eyes of weary ray, \ 

Shuts the portals of the day. 

Night sinks down, so softly darkling, 
Star joins star in mystic dance ; 

Greater light and tiny sparkling, 

Near and distant, gleam and glance ; 
Here they glimmer in the lake, 
There through heaven their circuit take, 
While the moon, with magic power, 
Seals the silence of the hour. 

Gone and lost are hours so dreary, 

Vanish 'd idle joy and grief ! 
Bodes, in sleep, the bosom weary 

How the day shall bring relief ; 
Spring looks out from hills and hollows, 

Rest abides in shady cave, 
And, in tremulous silver billows, 

Fields of corn for harvest wave. 

Work is still for thee on earth, 

Now no more in slumbers keep, 
Lightly bound, spring lightly forth, 

Cast away the shell of sleep : 
Hope, and strive, and labour still, 

Never yield to sinking heart ! 
He can all the work fulfil, 

Who fairly knows and does his part ! 
[A wondrous noise foretells the approach of the sun. 



ARIEL. 

Hearken, hearken ! stormy pealing, 

For quick elfin ear too strong, 
Now the new-born day revealing, 

Echoing rocks have joined the song ; 

Wheels of Phoebus roll along, 

Music of a mighty tone 
Comes with light too quick for sight, 

And the ear is all confounded 
Mid aerial trumpets blown. 

Hasten, ere ye be surrounded, 
Haste away, you little elves, 

In your flower-cups hide yourselves I 
Hide yourselves right still and deep, 

If you would your hearing keep ! 

FAUST. 

The pulses of my life beat freshly now, 

While mild ethereal dawn enfolds my brow, 

The earth, with quiet sleep refreshed all night, 

Through open pores breathes out a new delight. 

How all things long to live! and keen desire 

Awakes in me, for ever to aspire ; 

In glimmering sheen the world is wrapt around, 

With thousand-voiced life the forests sound ; 

Along the vale the misty streaks are drawn, 

And light darts down where mountain chasms yawn; 

And leafy twigs from misty clefts bloom out, 

On buds and blooms fresh pearls are dropped about, 

Hue after hue, gleams from the dusky ground, 

And paradise is opened all around ! 

Upwards my glance ! the mountain-peaks are glowing, 

For us the signs of glorious day-birth showing ! 

Glad sooner to enjoy the eternal light, 

That later beams on our enraptured sight ; 

Now a bright glance awakes the mountain-green, 

With gradual spread fills all the vales between, 

And now bursts forth ! and, dazzled at the day, 

With aching eyes I turn myself away. 

So 'tis with us, when fond hopes, cherish'd long, 

Upheld through storms of contradiction strong, 

To ripe fulfilment, suddenly are grown, 

And gates of paradise are open thrown : 

Then, bursting from the eternal ground is seen 

A flaming light, for mortal eye too keen, 

Life's torch to kindle with one vital spark, 

We sought ; but now, with ' ' light excessive dark," 

We stand confounded, know not where to hide, 

A sea of fire rolls round on every side ! 

Is 't love or hate that glows around us here, 

And mingles joy with strange foreboding fear, 

As to the gate of life we draw too near ? 

Again we gladly seek the shadowy dale, 

And hide ourselves in nature's maiden veil. 

So let the sun behind me blaze awhile, 

As here I meet his fair reflected smile; 

Yon waterfall, with genial gladness, see 

Burst through the rocky cleft, in rapturous glee. 

From leap to leap, a thousand streams outpouring, 

Mid foam-clouds over foam-clouds lightly soaring. 

How glorious, beaming through the misty air 

The changeful-during rainbow's colours there ! 

Now clear outshining, now they softly fade, 

Lost for a moment in the misty shade ; 

Well paints the varying bow our life's endeavour, 

For ever changing, yet the same for ever : 

Gaze, meditate thereon, and you will see 

Our many-coloured life's true mystery. 

Amid all the strange masquerading that follows 
this opening, the translation of what we may style 
Greek ideas into the north seems to be the clue of the 
meaning. Here and there are scattered Mephisto- 
phelian apophthegms of quaint humour such as : — 



FAUST.' 



21 



The stupid crowd will never know 
How wisdom must with pleasure go, 

Ever the self-same track in : 
Had they to-day, the sage's stone, 
'T would be a barren flint alone, 

The sage would still be lacking. 

Here is a glimpse of Arcadia : — 

Pan guards the land, here rural nymphs abide, 
And in moist bushy clefts their beauty hide ; 
And, ever breathing for their genial skies, 
The branch-entwining stately trees arise. 

See the old woods ! the oak of sturdy build, 

Knits branch to branch for long enduring years — 

And, the mild maple, with sweet juices fill'd, 
In beauteous lightsomeness her branches bears. 

And, motherly, in dewy shadows mild, 
Forth gushes the warm milk for lamb and child, 
For harvest nigh the ripe corn waves in glee, 
And honey drops from many a hollow tree. 

Heirs of sweet quiet these fair pastures nourish, 
Here glowing cheeks and ruddy lips are given. 

Each in his place immortal seems to flourish, 
Contented, healthful progeny of heaven ! 

And here unfolds himself from day to day, 
To all his father's strength the boy so dear, 

We wonder at their blessedness, and say, 

Are these the sons of men, or gods of happier sphere? 

There is only one part of this singular poem 
that seems to touch anything like pathos, and that 
is the Lament for the boy " Euphorion." One of 
Faust's problems, the solution of which seems in- 
dispensable for the happiness of that new world in 
which he would live, is to find and keep the golden 
medium, between the wild energy of youth, and 
the apathetic prudence of age, — a problem old 
enough indeed, and furnishing scope for the de- 
rision of Mephistopheles. Euphorion is the symbol 
of reckless, enthusiastic youth ; he bursts from the 
bondage of his parents, forsakes the Arcadian 
vale, and perishes. 

HELENA. 

Ah ! the day so sad and weary 
Turns our songs to dismal moan, 

[Euphoiuon's voice from the shades. 

In this shadowy realm so dreary, 
Mother, leave me not alone ! 



CHOIR. 

Not alone ! where'er abiding, 

Still we know thee who thou art, 
Ah, when thou shalt leave thy hiding, 

No kind soul from thee will part ! 
Hardly we lament thee may, 

Almost envy we thy fate, 
Thine, in bright and cloudy day, 

Soul and song so fair and great ! 

Ah, so quickly broken-hearted, 

Thou, for earthly glory born ! 
Bloom of youth, so soon departed, 

Left thee all alone, forlorn ! 
Gone that glance the world surveying, 

Heart of sympathetic tone, 
Glow of love around thee playing, 

And that magic song, thy own ! 

Carelessly thy heart disclosing, 
To the cruel grasp of fate ; 



In wild play, awhile opposing 

Laws of this, our earthly state : 
Yet, at last, when higher thought 

Gave to thee a purer will, 
Thou wouldst something great have wrought — 

Never couldst thy hopes fulfil ! 

Who fulfils them ? mournful query, 

Never answered, still to come ! 
Till the nations, baffled, weary, 

In that dreadful day be dumb ! 
Other songs lift up the head I 
Bend no longer o'er the dead, 
For the ground shall all restore — 
Lost and found for evermore. 

And now enough of quotation from this mystery, 
the greater part of which, whatever meaning it 
may have for those who, as the writer said, will 
give more than he could convey, to an English ear, 
reads like flat nonsense, — plenty of rhyme and no 
reason. But as we have now got into the inter- 
minable subject of " Faust," let us get out of it by 
one more version of the " Prologue-Song " of the 
first part. 

There must be something attractive in this 
melody, which has enticed so many to endeavour, 
in translation, to keep its music, measure, and 
meaning. Among its translators we may name 
Shelley, Blackie, and Lord Leveson Gower. 

PROLOGUE-SONG. 

FROM "FAUST," PARTI. 
RAPHAEL. 

The sun still chaunts his ancient story, 

(His brethren-spheres contending wonder), 
And, on his measur'd way, in glory, 

He rolls along with pace of thuuder. 
He pours seraphic inspiration, 

Though no one comprehend him may, 
And all the grandeurs of creation 

Are bright as in the primal day ! 

GABRIEL. 

And, swifter than can thought attend her, 

Rolls the earth-glory, glad and light, 
Alternates Paradisian splendour 

With glooms of deep and awful night. 
The ocean foams, vast waves upthrowing, 

Rock-shaking, from his chasms deep, 
And rocks and billows, forward going, 

Their rapture in the sphere-course keep. 

MICHAEL. 

And tempests roar, in emulation, 

From sea to land, from land to sea, 
And weave around, in perturbation, 

A chain of deepest energy. 
There bursts the flashing devastation, 

And thunders follow on its way : 
Thy servants, Lord, with veneration, 

Behold thy soft-revolving day ! 

CHORUS. 

Thou giv'st thine angels inspiration, 
Though no one comprehend thee may, 

And all the works of thy creation 
Are bright as in the primal day. 

We shall now give some account of Goethe's 
best productions, — his " Tasso," and " Hermann 
and Dorothea." 



22 



GOETHE. 



CHAPTER V. 

goethe's "torquato tasso." 

This is a quiet and beautiful drama, and contains 
quite as much meaning in it, for the good of man- 
kind, as some stirring tragedies. It is a passage 
in the education of a poet, described by a poet of 
genial mind ; and every one, therefore, who thinks 
that a poet is an interesting object, will be disposed 
to study the work with kindly attention. 

We know that one of the favourite maxims which 
the author delighted to inculcate upon youthful 
artists was, that a poet, like every other artist, for 
his due and true development, needs education; 
and this truth is beautifully illustrated in the 
drama now before us. In his correspondence with 
Zelter, the musician, the author gives us the fol- 
lowing observations, which are well worthy of our 
consideration : — 

" To have cultivated our natural gifts in an 
artist-like manner remains one of our most satis- 
factory feelings ; but, at the present time, it has a 
greater merit than in former clays, when beginners 
still believed in such things as schools, rules, and 
mastership, and modestly submitted themselves to 
the grammar of their art and science, of which the 
youthful aspirants of our day will not hear a word. 

" Our artists have, for thirty years, been under 
the illusion that a natural genius can form itself, 
and a swarm of passionate amateurs encourage 
them in this idle notion. A hundred times have I 
heard artists boast that < they owed everything to 
themselves? I generally listen to this with patience ; 
but, sometimes I am provoked to add, ' Yes ! and 
the result is just Avhat might be expected.' What, 
let me ask, is a man in and of himself \ " 

These remarks are true both in ethical and in 
sesthetical education. The perfection of this edu- 
cation would be in a standard to which the pupil 
could be brought to yield, willingly and fully, his 
obedience, and take it as his rule for life ; but 
in default of this perfection, how valuable the friend 
— the guide, who will drop the right word, at the 
right time, into the inquiring mind, and lead into a 
way of light the blind impulse of genius ! 

Alas ! the want of this true education, amid all 
our lofty seats of learning, — the want of this help 
and guidance has been the great complaint of 
humanity. We can educate the lower faculties, 
but we have no guidance for the higher powers of 
the mind. We can guide and help the man en- 
dowed with a mechanical genius, but all our schools 
leave the poet to guide himself ; and then we 
declaim against genius because the neglected power 
produces a Byron instead of an Isaiah ! The old 
generation, which passes away, is defective in 
accommodation of mind to the new forms required 
by the rising race ; and this new generation is 
defective in filial regard towards the good and true 
experience of time, summed up in the old forms 
of thought ; and thus it happens that the expe- 
rience of the aged is gained too late, when the vigour 
of youth is wanted for its practice, and the energy 
of youth is wasted for want of the guiding expe- 
rience of age ; and thus, when we consider how little 
experience seems to instruct men, we should fall 
into a melancholy view of deterioration, did we not 
believe, beyond what we know, that deeper influ- 



ences than those which we can easily explain are 
working for the amelioration of society. 

The character drawn out in the drama before us 
is that of a poet, with great powers of mind and 
soul, deep feeling, and creative imagination, — but, 
as a man, uneducated, untaught how to reconcile 
the ideal and the real — how to make himself at 
home, and hold his proper place, and fulfil his pro- 
per duty among his fellow-men — how to make the 
differences, the denials, the hardships of the actual 
world, in its opposition to poetic genius, the steps, 
not down into a gulf of solitude, unfaithfulness, 
and despair, but, like those of Jacob's ladder, up to 
the pinnacle of virtue and mastership. 

The feelings of the hero of the drama, therefore, 
are the objects which the poet describes ; and 
there is no want of action, but it is intellectual 
action, confined to the mind of Tasso ; and as all 
who understand the common feelings of human 
nature will be interested when we describe them 
well, so all who understand a poet's feelings will 
be interested in the experience of Tasso ; and a 
poet is only a man on a larger and more energetic 
course of intellectual activity. 

Hence, the feelings of Torquato Tasso, in his trial 
and in his triumph, are the same in kind, as those 
which every man experiences in the course of his 
mental and moral education ; and the lesson which 
the drama teaches is not restricted in its applica- 
tion to a few poets and artists, but may be applied 
to all who are engaged in the process of self-forma- 
tion. The essential laws of aesthetics may easily 
be brought into play upon the field of ethics. The 
rule which keeps in harmony the mind of a Shak- 
speare will serve to guide the mind and conduct of 
an ignorant peasant. 

One remark is called from us by this peculiar 
feature of modern poetry, which so plainly distin- 
guishes it from the ancient, viz. : its intellectual 
and sentimental character, which gives more inte- 
rest to the description of thoughts and feelings than 
to that of the outward phenomena of the world in 
which we live, and the external doings of men upon 
it. It is Byron's sentiment, rather than his de- 
scriptive power, which gives the interest to his 
verses. The same may be said of Wordsworth 
and of the modern French and German poets, 
differing, as they do, in other respects. Scott and 
Southey, in their metrical writings, perhaps form 
the greatest exceptions to this character of modern 
poetry ; but Scott threw more sentiment into his 
prose writings, and Southey's poetry, though 
splendidly imaginative, awakens but little interest. 

There are some who regard this subjectivity of 
modern poetry simply as a sign of declining vigour ; 
and to cure this evil, if it admits of a cure, they 
would recommend a return to the ancient models, 
and teach us to write again in the style of Hesiod 
and Homer. But this cannot be done : or if any 
one would attempt it, he must reckon on finding 
very few readers. The poet is not the merely 
imaginative agent that some suppose. He must 
have a foundation for his work in reality and in 
genuine feeling. Whatever some have said of the 
dissimilarity that may be between the poet and 
the man, between the imaginative and the real 
character, we are not believers in the doctrine. 
We do believe that the works of every great poet 
will be a faithful transcript of the features of his 
own mind and the mind of the age in which he 



" TASSO.' 



23 



lives. Whether Virgil had the attributes of a 
great poet, excepting his elegant diction and fine 
power of imitation, we shall not here determine : 
but how different his Roman copy of the " Iliad," 
composed for the court, from the true life, fire, and 
energy of the original, which seems to have been 
composed, or rather inspired, within sight and 
hearing of the Grecian camps before Troy ! Ho- 
race was the sincere poet of his age. There is a 
reality about that elegant little half-poet and half- 
philosopher, which we cannot find in his friend and 
cotemporary, Virgil. He is, in this respect, as 
much superior to the Mantuan as Crabbe is to 
Moore. 

Every species of poetry, then, is good which 
is genuine in its due season. The Bucolics of 
Theocritus will not sound very well just now in 
Ireland. Another « Iliad," though powerful in 
imagination, would read drily in London. Another 
" Jerusalem Delivered" would be less popular than 
the Oxford Tracts. Let each species of poetry be 
regarded as a necessary movement in the develop- 
ment of the poetic mind of the human race, and 
then every poet will be surrounded with the beauty 
and glory of the whole. But let those who would 
call us away from our solitary meditations and all 
the sad poetry of experience, find subjects for us 
to sing about if they can. Shall we go back to the 
ancient heroic times, and sing about " those men 
of mighty bone and large enterprise," of whose 
deeds old Homer sung ? If we do, will they pro- 
mise to read our rhapsodies without falling asleep ? 
Shall we limit ourselves to the middle ages, and 
finish the stories which Milton read in his youth ? 
The interest that once accompanied these matters 
of chivalry is dead. Shall we tell of wonders across 
the seas, — of far-off, dimly-discovered lands, by 
right pertaining to the poet ? They belong now to 
merchants, and politicians, and geologists. The 
world is superficially — that is, geographically, com- 
mercially, and politically — known, and we cannot 
hope for a new school of poetry by the help of new 
scenery. 

Yet we are not in despair. What then remains 
for us to do % The mind of man remains, and the 
universe, the symbol of that mind, remains ; and 
both are always old and will always be new. No 
poetry can long delight which is altogether alien to 
to our real life. The poet may transcend our real 
life, he may exalt it by imagination, but he must 
not leave it behind him. And in our day, when 
the life-breath of an elevating, philanthropic poetry 
ought to be infused throughout our social institu- 
tions, pervading the dwellings of the poor and 
sanctifying the low by bringing it into communion 
with the lofty ; when men are waiting to know 
themselves that they may fulfil their mission upon 
earth ; when they are beginning to feel 

How small of all the ills which hearts endure, 
That part which kings or laws can cause or cure ; 

when we peculiarly need a sincere union between 
our literature and our life ; when we want books 
that we may take to ourselves as bosom-friends — 
books that we may not only read, but believe and 
love ; — at such a time, the poet who would treat us 
with another epic about Prince Arthur, or the 
World before the Flood, or the Conquest of Jeru- 
salem or America, would be very much like the 



comforters of poor Job, who attempted to cure his 
sorrows by studied orations, very sublime and very 
unseasonable. 

From the sentimental character of modern poe- 
try arises its obscurity. As descriptions of scenery 
and outward actions presuppose a common use of 
the senses among mankind, so sentimental poetry 
presupposes a common internal experience of the 
sentiments it expresses, or, we should rather say, 
attempts to express ; but as these sentiments, in 
various individuals, are infinitely more delicately 
distinguished and more fluctuating than the aspects 
of external nature, or the actual transactions of 
men upon the theatre of history, so the difficulty 
of obtaining a common appreciation and under- 
standing of sentimental poetry must be increased ; 
and hence arises the complaint of obscurity. And 
this complaint is not without its reason ; and the 
defect to which it adheres must be the motive to 
bring the poetry of sentiment into clearness and 
intelligibility ; for, after all, while we admit that 
the sentimental is a necessary part of the develop- 
ment of poetry, we know that the clear, the out- 
ward, and the commonly intelligible is the best, and 
the poet must not rest until he has arrived at this 
perfection. Then nature and human life will 
furnish symbols appropriate to every sentiment, 
and the poet will be involved in no painful contest 
between his thoughts and the language which he 
must employ to unfold them. 

If the reader would inquire more curiously into 
the nature of this change from the clear, expansive, 
and external element of ancient, to the impas- 
sioned, internal, and mysterious character of mo- 
dern poetry, let him contrast a passage from 
Homer, for clearness and outwardness, with a sen- 
timental passage from Goethe's " Tasso," or an 
extract from Wordsworth. For instance, let us 
take the meeting of Ulysses with his father. 

In the well-cultured orchard, all alone, 
He found his father, digging round a plant, 
Clothed in a tunic, squalid, patched, unseemly, 
With greaves of cow-hide hound upon his legs 
To keep them from the briars, and rough gloves 
Upon his hands to fence them from the thorns, 
And on his head a goat-skin helm he wore, 
An irksome load ; — him, when Ulysses saw, 
With age afflicted, with a heavy grief 
For ever in his mind, within the shade 
Of the tall pear-tree standing, he shed tears. 

This passage is chosen as an example of Homer's 
style, chiefly on account of its brevity ; but it will 
exemplify our meaning very well. We see that 
the strength of sentiment does not suppress the 
attention to outward things, which characterises the 
always-wakeful mind of the old poet. He rather 
implies the sentiment in the scenery than attempts 
its immediate utterance. With the exception of the 
few words marked in italics, all the passage is as 
outward as a picture, and a very good picture it 
would make. But, in all probability, a modern poet, 
in writing on such a theme, would have told us of 
all the old paternal feelings stirred in the bosom of 
the father, and of the filial yearnings of the son. 
Not so Homer. Even in the succeeding conversa- 
tion between Ulysses and his sire, the speakers keep 
very closely to facts, and say very little about their 
own feelings. Now we are not making the contrast 
for any purpose of disparagement to modern poetry ; 



24 



GOETHE. 



but in what a different style are the following lines 
from Wordsworth's " Ode on Immortality !" 

What though the radiance which was once so bright 

Be now for ever hidden from our sight, 

Though nothing can bring back the hour 

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower ; — 

We will grieve not, rather find 

Strength in what remains behind ; 
In the primal sympathy 
Which, having been, must ever be, 
In the faith which looks through death — 
In years that bring the philosophic mind." 

* * " * * * * 

To me the meanest flower that blows, can bring 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 

These thoughts are not unfolded, and so the lines 
are sentimental and obscure ; but still beautiful in 
the" intimation which they convey to all who can 
sympathise with the great Poet. 

We have characterised Goethe, Wordsworth, 
and Byron, as all three sentimental poets ; but 
they are to be widely distinguished. Goethe 
delights in a rich variety of external scenery ; but 
it is always as associated with some peculiar senti- 
mental meaning, which he chooses rather to imply 
in his descriptions than to express abstractedly. 
Wordsworth, though not finding language and 
symbols to express all his great thoughts in their 
details, rests in the faith that " in nature and the 
language of the senses " there will vdtimately be 
found full interpretation of the great truths which 
pervade his poetry. But Byron labours with sen- 
timents which aU nature cannot help him to utter 
satisfactorily. After all that he says, he departs 

With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it like a sword. 
And Lamartine is full of this modern complaint 
of the insufficiency of language, and tells us that 
silence, after all, is the best poetry : and in the 
same way, he might assure us that non-existence 
is the best mode of being. 

Good poetry, like everything good, is catholic, 
clear, and intelligible, and every clear good thought 
mirrors itself in the realities of the external world. 
The mind must be sadly perplexed with false 
thoughts when all the vast array of symbols dis- 
posed around us, the sun, stars, the * air, winds, 
fountains, streams, dews, rains, deserts, storms, 
days and nights, light and darkness, hills and 
valleys, the continual contest and the abiding calm 
of the universe, will not help us to express our- 
selves. A poet surely cannot recede farther from 
the true purpose of his art than when he stands still 
to acquaint us with the painful fact that he is unable 
to teU us exactly what he means ; but this sad 
confession is very common in modern poetry, and 
is perhaps mistaken as an easy way to the sub- 
lime. Old Homer never affords an instance of it. 
'Euueire /xoi Movcra — says he, and straightway sings 
on and on the deeds of his heroes, without ever 
stopping to tell us of himself and his difficulties, 
though no doubt he had some to contend with; 
but he was above descending to the style of 

Pity the sorrows of a poor blind man ! 
But we are straying rather widely from " Torquato 
Tasso." _ Let us return to our theme. 

The singular merit of this dramatic poem is 
this ; — that it is the fruit of genuine experience 
and observation, adorned with the hues of a beauti- 
ful imagination and clothed in classical language. 



It is a work written for the few : but it sets the 
example of a style of poetry based upon reality, 
which may be addressed to the many. Some will 
regard the poet as a merely imaginative man ; but 
here the poet speaks, we have no doubt, from true 
experience, and a few sentences of sound experience 
will outweigh, in our estimation, long epics of 
imagination. 'Tis true the work does not go very 
far : it only acquaints us with some of the pecu- 
liarities and dangers to which the constitution of 
the poet's mind and temperament is liable — but 
so far as it goes, it is in the true direction. Let 
us only have the various characters into which 
human nature divides itself, as truly and as beauti- 
fully described, and that will be the school of 
poetry which is wanted in these times; and the 
poet will again take his place, where he ought to 
be, in the foremost rank of those minds who 
enlighten and guide the human race. To this end 
we hope that the determination of the public mind 
in its neglect of epic endeavours and achievements 
of mere imagination and versification will conduct 
the minds of our rising poets (if any are rising 
among us), and teach them that the poet must be 
a man of observation and genial wisdom, not sacri- 
ficing the ideal excellence which he aims at, in his 
conversation with the realities of human life, nor 
on the other hand, leaving the world of realities to 
indulge in the flights of imagination. The higher 
and more beautiful sentiments of our nature which 
are flattered by the descriptions of poetry, are not 
intended to be thus immediately gratified by neglect 
of the " stern realities of life ; " but by triumph 
over them. In a good world it is evident that no 
such opposition as we have between poetry and 
reality could exist ; but it is also evident that so 
long as we leave open to our minds an imaginative 
elysium into which we can flee away from the 
world whenever we choose, and be at rest amid 
the groves and streams of a romantic poesy, we 
shall never take the requisite pains and patience to 
fashion the life and practice of the world about us 
to the model of beauty presented to our view by 
genuine poetry. And thus all the love and devotion 
which we bestow upon our ideal visions must be 
stolen away from realities. " Unum alteri eget." 

Both the student addicted to abstruse investiga- 
tion and the poet rapt in imaginative reveries, if 
endowed with warm feelings, when brought into 
communication with the minds of their less favoured 
fellow-men ; when they see how many fine faculties 
are perishing for want of guidance ; how many 
minds are striving after harmony ; how many trials 
and difficulties of human life want the light of true 
doctrine and the inspiring breath of poetry to 
relieve them ; how the young need the aid of 
animating song and story to sustain the sweet hopes 
and affections which the world is prone to destroy ; 
while so much of the professed teaching and 
guidance imparted is insincere ; must feel that 
they have been unfaithful in their mission, and that 
it is time for science and poetry to leave the cave 
of abstraction and the arcadia of fancy, and to 
enter the dwellings of the poor and diffuse their 
influence through the channels of human life. 

In short, the whole of the wants of the human 
race may be summed up in one word, and that one 
word is — Education. And the poet must take 
his due place in the education of humanity ; and, if 
to fulfil the work, he must abandon the luxury of 



« TASSO." 



^5 



dreams, and leave some of the splendid erections 
of imagination half built, let him endure the sacri- 
fice — he will find ample recompense. We have 
indeed already plenty of beautiful poetry on one 
side, and we have also plenty of unbeautified, un- 
consecrated reality on the other. We want no 
more of either one or the other in its state of false 
abstraction ; but we want the intercommunion of 
the two. 

How can the poet be satisfied with sitting apart 
and singing lofty hymns, conscious all the while 
that the great world around him is making harsh 
discord in which the music of his song must die 
away and be forgotten ? How can he feel joy in 
making melody for a few self-indulgent listeners, 
while the vast numbers of his fellow-men are 
hastening on the career of toil, worshipping the 
means and forgetting the end of life, living un- 
cheered by the voice of song, with no celestial 
music breathing through the storm of life which 
encompasses them % To sing epicurean melodies in 
the present state of society, would be as vain as to 
attempt to gain a hearing for the dulcet whisperings 
of Eulensteins's jew's-harp upon the field of battle. 

But let us not be mistaken. We would not call 
the poet away from the gentle element of poesy 
to the combat of politics, nor would we place him 
in the chair of the theologian. Let every one work 
according to his peculiar nature ; but let all have 
one end in view. The poet cannot do much 
immediately for his fellow-creatures. He stands 
high, and the influences of truth from his mind 
must flow down through inferior orders of mind ; 
but let his work be truly devoted to promote the 
education of the race to which he belongs. 

But the poet, in order to be the educator of his 
fellow-men, must himself be educated; and who 
shall educate him 1 Who stands above him in the 
scale of mind, so as to be able to help him up higher 1 
Who comprehends the powers that are in him, so as 
to be able to lead them out into their due field of 
exercise ? Too many of the order of great minds, who 
have gained precious experience even by their 
errors, only utter complaints over the errors of their 
lives, without giving to the world those intimations 
of a better order of life which ought to attend the 
voice of complaint. They neglect or refuse to 
build up in other minds those principles to which 
they themselves have been unfaithful, though now 
they are deeply assured of their value. They limit 
their view to themselves and, looking backward 
instead of forward, forget that the fruit of all their 
errors and disappointments and miseries may be 
made the bitter but wholesome root for future 
and better fruit in the development of humanity. 
They take a melancholy view of error in itself, and 
will not see that it is a rod to drive us to the truth. 
They feel sorrow in themselves, but will not learn 
the mystery of making the troubles of one genera- 
tion introduce the peace of posterity. 

To educate the poet we must honour him. If 
we are to honour all men, surely we are to honour 
the great man — the poet. All that there is of 
poetry in any man is divine : and it is no idolatry 
to confess it and to honour it ; for it is not his own, 
though it is in him. There is in his soul the 
spring that may flow forth and beautify and con- 
secrate our earthly existence ; but he may direct 
the very Ipower that was intended for our good 
against us and against himself. It is the uneducated 



powers of the human mind which produce all the 
disorders of the world ; and if the uneducated 
peasant, even of common-place mind, is dangerous 
to society, how much more so the uneducated poet ! 
The more latent the powers for which no true 
education is provided are kept, the better it is for 
us ; but the mind whose character is intense 
activity of thought and feeling must work for good 
or for evil. What might Burns have been, truly 
honoured, and truly educated ? What might Byron 
have been ? Such minds are only powerfully expres- 
sions of the evil of the state of society, in which 
they were miseducated ; and that society, alas ! 
finds it easier to utter reproaches upon the indi- 
vidual, than to convert the sad failure of genius 
into an effectual lesson of good experience for all 
who shall succeed him. 

All this, perhaps, will appear to some, an over-impor- 
tant introduction to " Torquato Tasso." But we say 
again, that we recommend this poem because we think 
it is in a true style, and contains some contribution 
towards the education of superior minds. It may 
be only a little meaning that it contains ; but that 
meaning is good, and will outweigh all the positive 
contents of truth that can be gleaned from many 
works of more high-sounding poetry. The writings of 
Byron, and others of the same school, when divested 
of their imagery and force of diction, and reduced 
to a plain statement of the simple truths which 
they contain, have an appearance of miserable 
poverty, and some of the poetical flights of the 
modern French school have quite a ridiculous mea- 
greness of substance when reduced to a plain logi- 
cal shape in prose. But the dramatic poem before 
us would bear very well a long paraphrase in 
prosaic language ; because it contains instruction 
which, in any shape, would be welcome to all who 
are inquiring for true intellectual improvement. 

And now it is time that we proceed to give some 
account of the work for which we have spun out 
this long introduction. Goethe's representation 
of the relation existing between the unfortunate 
Tasso and his patron Alphonso, differs very much 
from that given in the indignant stanzas of " Childe 
Harold." 

We cannot detail strictly the facts of the case ; 
but must content ourselves with the reasonable con- 
clusion that there " were faults on both sides." 
For the particulars we must refer to Mr. Stebbing's 
biography of Tasso. 

It was in the twenty -second year of his age, that 
the poet was taken under the patronage of Alphonso, 
the second Duke of Ferrara, and at his court 
Tasso lived in happiness, surrounded by all the 
cheerful influences that could encourage his ardent 
soul and brighten his romantic imagination. The 
pure affection of the princess for the poet we 
would not question ; and what could be a better 
guide to all the highest sentiments of his nature? In 
the midst of such rich culture the fruit of his medita- 
tions, the " Jerusalem Delivered, " was ripened, 
and in 1573 the poem was completed so as to please 
and satisfy every mind save his own. But he 
would spend years in correcting and polishing his 
work, that it might attain the perfection which is 
always before the eye and never within the grasp 
of the artist. Meanwhile a part of the work was 
surreptitiously published, and the harmony of the 
poet's mind was interrupted by this untoward 
incident. At the same time, he grew miserably 



26 



GOETHE 



of the poet whose genius breathes enchantment 
over the scene. 

LEONORA. 

His eye scarce seems to tarry on the earth, 
His ear receives all nature's harmonies, 
And all that life and history can give 
Is treasured up in his capacious breast. 
His mind collects the scattered rays of light, 
His soul can animate the lifeless clay. 
Things that to us seem common he exalts, 
And what we prize to him seems vanity. 
Thus in a magic circle wanders on 
This wondrous man, and draws us after him, 
Seems to approach us, yet remains apart, 
And often seems to fix his gaze upon us, 
While spirits, in our likeness, stand before him. 

Enter Alphonso, 

ALPHONSO. 

I seek for Tasso, and he is not here. 
Can you give me no tidings of our poet ? 

PRINCESS. 

I saw but little of him yesterday : 

To-day I have not caught a glimpse of him. 

alphonso. 
'Tis his old fault ; he cleaves to solitude : 
And I forgive him when he shuns the crowd 
Of idle men to converse with himself ; 
But cannot praise his wisdom when he shuns 
The true and cordial circle of his friends. 

LEONORA. 

If I mistake not, you will change the tone 
Of your complaint, ere long, to cheerful praise. 
To-day I saw him, in the distance, walking, 
With book and tablets, writing now and then, 
And a chance word he uttered yesterday, 
Seems to imply his work is almost done : 
He tarries but to change a few stray lines, 
And then to put complete into your hand 
An offering worthy of your gracious favour. 

alphonso. 
He shall be welcome lohen he brings the work, 
And give his mind a long, bright holiday. 
Even as my interest in his labour grows 
Increases my impatience day by day. 
He cannot end it, will not say " 'tis done ! " 
But, ever-changing, for perfection striving, 
Puts out of reach the crown of all his toil. 

PRINCESS. 

I cannot blame the modesty and care 

That lead him, step by step, to crown his work. 

The Muses must give favourable hours 

To fold so many labours into one. 

He longs to see his work a finished whole, 

And not a string of fables to amuse 

Awhile, then fall, like scattered words, asunder. 

Allow him time, good brother, for his work : 

That future times with us may share the joy, 

In patience we must let the work mature. 

ALPHONSO. 

Dear sister, you and I must act together. 

When I am hasty you must temper me, 

And when you are too patient I must urge : 

Thus we shall bring him to the hoped-for close.*' 

Then fatherland and all the world shall wonder; 

And I shall have some portion of the fame, 

And Tasso shall be led into the world. 

A noble man can never reach perfection, 

Kept in a narrow circle. He must bear 

Both praise and blame, and find himself constrained 

To know himself by measuring with others. 

There solitude shall flatter him no more ; 



suspicious of the designs of his fellow-courtiers 
against him, and, at the noon-day of his glory, 
when about to give the fruit of his genius to the 
admiring world, clouds swept across the sun of 
his intellect, and darkness began to be felt. 

We are told that Alphonso was wearied with 
the restless suspicions of the unhappy poet, and 
to calm his disturbed imagination condemned him 
to solitude. We cannot see any other motive for 
this course of persecution ; but certainly the con- 
finement of Tasso in the hospital of St. Anna was 
a cruel and senseless measure to be employed in 
such a case of mental affliction, where the mild 
attentions of patient kindness and prudence might 
have quelled the storm of passion and restored the 
intellect to its genial and cheerful exercises. 
" Here, " says poor Tasso, writing from his cell, 
"my mind becomes slow of thought, my fancy 
indolent in imagining; my hand refuses to write ; 
I seem indeed to be frozen." A sad winter after 
a brilliant summer of mind ! 

His confinement lasted above seven years, and 
when released from the petrifying solitude of his 
cell, he wandered about like a spectre and could 
find nowhere a place that he could call his home, 
and nowhere one in whom he could confide as his 
friend ; and as a tall majestic figure, with pale and 
thoughtful countenance, and lustrous blue eyes, 
passed through the Italian towns, the people gazed 
with awe upon him, and said : " See ! that is 
Tasso ! " He died in the monastery of St. Severino, 
near Naples, and his remains he in the church 
under a plain slab, with the epitaph : — " Hie jacet 
Torquatus Tassus." 

And now let us see what Goethe has made of 
a part of this sad story. The brother-poet who 
tenderly records the failings of his predecessor is 
not one-sided and partial in his representation ; 
but the account which he gives has such internal 
agreement with nature that, perhaps, we may 
trust it as well as an historical document upon the 
subject. The lesson of the piece (which, perhaps, 
we rather harshly obtrude upon the reader in the 
Introduction), is one of such great importance that 
it is worthy of being displayed in all the charms of 
poetry, based upon the sure ground of observation 
and experience. It is this — that the poet cannot 
do everything, cannot fulfil his duty, by cultivating 
merely his imagination, however splendid and power- 
ful it may be. Like all other men who would be good 
and great, he must exercise patience and modera- 
tion, must learn the value of self-denial (a virtue 
better styled self-possession), must endure hard- 
ships and contradictions of the real world, con- 
tentedly occupy his place, with its pleasures and 
its pains, as a part in the great whole, and patiently 
wait to see the element of beauty and brightness 
which flows from his mind, win its way through the 
obstacles presented by human society. All this 
great lesson is deduced from a trivial circumstance 
- — a dispute between Tasso, the fervid poet, and 
Antonio, the cool, correct, and prudent gentleman. 

The drama opens with a scene in the Duke's 
garden at Belriguardo, where the princess and 
her companion, Leonora, are engaged in entwining 
wreaths of flowers, with which they deck the busts 
of Virgil and Ariosto. Of course, during this 
occupation of their hands, their tongues are not 
silent ; and in the current of their pleasant con- 
versation, Leonora gives an excellent description 



« TASSO. 



27 



Hisfoe will not and his friend dare not spare him. 
In the world's strife the youth puts forth his powers 
Finds what he is and feels himself a man ! 

LEONORA. 

So you will finish all your work in him. 

One talent may unfold in solitude ; 

In the world's stream a character is formed. 

that his mind and temper, like his art, 
Inspired hy your example, may be taught, 
No longer to avoid the haunts of men, 
Lest his suspicions turn to fear and hate. 

ALPHONSO. 

He only dreads mankind who knows them not, 
And he who shuns men easily mistakes them, 
As Tasso does, and thus, by sure degrees, 
His noble mind is darkened and enslaved. 
Thus is he oft too anxious of my favour 
And cherishes suspicion in his breast 
'Gainst many who would never do him wrong. 
If but a letter miss its way, a paper 
Be missing from its place, he thinks of treason, 
Of malice that would blast his happiness. 

PRINCESS. 

Yes : but, my Brother, we must not forget 
That from himself the man can never go. 
And if a friend, while walking at our side, 
Stumbles and lames himself, we lend our hand 
To lead him gently on— 

ALPHONSO. 

But it were better 
If we could cure him and, with good advice, 
Make him right sound again, and then proceed. 
But I will not, dear Sister, be too hard ; 

1 only would instil into his mind 

Good faith and confidence in those about him. 

Oft, in the presence of the court, I give him 

Marks of my favour. To his long complaints 

I yield attention, as I lately did 

Even when he fancied they had robbed his chamber. 

As we must put forth all our faculties, 

I exercise my patience upon Tasso. 

And you will help me in the work, I know. 

This evening I must hasten to Ferrara. 

In a few minutes you will see Antonio, 

Who comes from Rome to me, and many cares 

Brings with him, which will lead us to the town. 

PRINCESS. 

I see our Tasso coming slowly on, 
Sometimes he stands, as unresolved, awhile, 
Then hastens towards us,— now he stays again. 

ALPHONSO. 

Disturb him not, if he is in his dreams. 

LEONORA. 

No : he has caught a glimpse of us, and comes. 
Enter Tasso, bringing a book bound in parchment. 

TASSO. 

I come, at last, to bring to you a work 
Which I am half-ashamed to lay before you. 
I know too well it still is incomplete, 
Although the tale seems ended. Twofold fear 
Has kept me hesitating ; while I feared 
Lest I should place it at your feet imperfect 
And lest my gratitude should tardy seem. 
Such as it is, receive it, for 'tis yours. 

\He gives the book to Alphonso. 

ALPHONSO. 

You bring me, Tasso, with this gift delight, 
And make this beauteous day a festival. 
At last, I hold it surely in my hand 
And, in a certain sense, may call it mine. 



TASSO. 

If you are satisfied the work is done, 

The whole belongs to you in every way. 

When I regard the labour of my pen, 

I might declare, the work is surely mine : 

But when I ask what gives my Poesy 

All that it holds of inner worth and beauty, 

I do confess, I have it all from you. 

Though nature gave to me the soul of song, 

How easily might contradicting fate 

Have hid from me the face of this fair world ! 

The poverty of parents might have cast 

A dismal gloom o'er all my youthful thoughts, 

And if my lips had opened but to sing 

A mournful elegy had issued forth, 

Accordant with the sorrows of my home. 

You raised me from that narrow sphere of life, 

Lightening my soul from cares, that, in full flow, 

The soul of song might glorify my days ! 

All that I have your bounty gave to me, 

And, like a heavenly genius you delight 

Through a poor mortal to reveal yourself ! 

ALPHONSO. 

The beauteous crown, the poet's meed, I see 
Upon the forehead of your ancestor: 

^Pointing to the bust of Virgil. 
Has chance or some good genius brought it here ? 
Methinks I hear old Virgil saying now : 
" Why deck, with verdant coronals, the dead ? 
My marble image is adorned enough. 
The living crown becomes the living poet." 

[Alphonso beckons his sister, ivho takes the crown 
from Virgil's bust and approaches Tasso : he 
steps back. 

LEONORA. 

Why hesitate ? whose hand bestows the crown ? 

TASSO. 

How, after such a moment, shall I live ! 

PRINCESS. 

You will allow me, Tasso, the delight 

To tell you, without words, all— all I think. 

\He kneels down, while the Princess places the 
crown upon his head, and Leonora applauds. 

TASSO. 

O take it off, ye gods ! and, glorified, 
There let it hang, suspended in the heavens, 
High, inaccessible !— let all my life 
Be a eontinual aiming at that mark ! 

It is a pleasing picture of a true aristocracy 
which the Poet here gives us in the court of 
Alphonso. Wealth is but a poor and perishable 
thing when it builds its towers and plants its woods, 
and lays out spacious parks, unless the bright, con- 
summate flowers of humanity — works of genius and 
art — flourish around it, converting that which other- 
wise would only be a selfish luxury into a common 
benefit. 

But, at this moment of the Poet's triumph, Anto- 
nio, the accomplished statesman, comes upon the 
stage, hardly prepared to enter into the enthu- 
siasm of the occasion. He thinks proper to pro- 
nounce an eulogium, not upon Tasso, but upon 
Ariosto, whose bust be finds ornamented with the 
chaplet woven by Leonora's hands. 

The Princess however determines to bind to- 
gether Tasso and Antonio, these types of the ideal 
and the real, in true friendship, and finds the Poet 
willing to do his part towards such a happy con- 
summation. But what he does he must do by 
inspiration and in a moment. Patience to wait 
quietly for the gradual growth of congeniality of 



28 



GOETHE. 



mind fails the Poet. He demands a return of 
friendship as prompt and enthusiastic as his offer, 
and the cold delay of the politician very soon turns 
Tasso's proffered affection into suspicion, anger, 
and hate. Thus all things untrue and unperma- 
nent are liable to fall into their contraries. Hasty 
zeal falls into dreary coldness ; impure love soon 
ends in disgust ; an unmoderated activity leads to 
weariness and lethargy ; and impatient hope dies 
away in despair. 

That is no true and permanent poetical mind 
which turns to all the bitterness of satire when the 
world refuses to listen to its song. It takes no 
little amount of neglect, contempt, and oppres- 
sion to crush down a soul endowed with the true 
a mens divinior." 

But previous to the quarrel which ensues between 
the Poet and the Politician we have a conversation 
between the Princess and Tasso. 

TASSO. 

With unsure pace my footsteps follow thee, 

Princess ! and my thoughts without controul 
And order raise strange tumult in my soul. 
Now solitude entices me and seems 

To whisper — " Hither come and I will solve 
The newly-risen douhts that trouble thee." 
But when I cast a glance on thee, or hear 
A single word soft falling from thy lips, 
A new day seems to dawn upon my soul 
And all my hands of thought dissolve away. 

1 must confess to you, at once, the man 
Who here arrived so lately has not softly 
Aroused me from a sweet and gentle dream. 
His character, his language, strike me so 
They make me feel myself a twofold man 
Again in strong contention with myself. 

PRINCESS. 

It is impossible an ancient friend 

Accustomed to a life remote from ours 

Should in the moment when we meet again 

Be found exactly what he was of yore. 

He is not alter'd in his inner soul : 

Let us but live with him a little while 

And all the various chords within our minds 

Will fall in tune again ; then we shall have 

New harmony ; and he will learn to prize 

The work which you have finished in his absence 

And place you at the side of Ariosto 

Whom, as a giant, he arrayed against you. 

TASSO. 

My Princess, I assure you that the praise 

Of Ariosto, flowing from his lips, 

Delighted me more than his coldness grieved me. 

'Tis sweet to me to hear the poet praised 

Whom I have always studied as my model : 

Let me attain a portion of his worth, 

So shall be mine a portion of the praise ! 

No : that which fell so heavy on my heart, 

Which now I feel throughout my inmost soul, 

'Twas the well-pictur'd forms of that vast world 

Which moves itself obedient to this man 

Who works upon it like a demi-god. 

I listened to his words and heard with pleasure 

His steady talk of deep experience ; 

But, ah ! the more I listened, still the more 

I felt myself sink down, and almost feared 

Lest like a feeble echo on the rock 

My song should die and leave no fame behind. 

PRINCESS. 

And yet, you lately seemed so well to feel 

How bard and hero for each other live, 

By mutual services so bound together, 

That envy sure should never come between them. 



True : glorious is the deed demanding song, 

But beautiful it is that noble deed 

In worthy poesy to celebrate. 

Contented be from this small, quiet nook, 

As from a shore of safety, to look out 

On all the tumults of the restless world. 

TASSO. 

Here first I saw with youthful admiration 

The honours that accompany the brave. 

An inexperienced youth I hither came, 

Just at that time when gay festivities 

Made this Ferrara glory's focus-light. 

O what a spectacle my soul beheld ! 

The spacious place where courage came to shine — 

A circle closed around— so beautiful, 

The sun shall never see another like it ! 

The fairest ladies and the bravest men 

Sat close together in that glorious ring. 

Our small and sea-encircled fatherland 

Bad hither sent forth that superb array, 

A grand tribunal, worthy to adjudge 

The prize of warlike virtue and brave deeds. 

Glance round the circle, and you find not one 

That of his neighbour needs to be ashamed ! 

Then, when the lists were opened, stamped the steeds, 

And shields and helmets glistened in the sun, 

And gloriously the trumpet sounded out. [clangour, 

Then lances cracked and helms and shields made 

And whirling clouds of dust arose to hide 

The victor's triumph o'er the fallen hero. 

let me draw a cm-tain o'er the picture, 
Lest I too deeply feel my littleness ! 

PRINCESS. 

While that accomplished circle, those brave deeds 
Inflamed your youthful fancy, and your heart 
Prompted to venture on some manly striving, 

1 could have taught you also, my young friend, 
The quiet doctrine of a patient mind. 

That glorious festival I did not see ; 
But in a lonely nook, where died away 
The last faint echoes of those sounds of joy, 
I sat in pain, with many pensive thoughts, 
And, with broad wings before me, hover'd then 
The form of Death and covered from my sight 
The scenes of all the various living world. 
By slow degrees that dark cloud passed away, 
And once again I saw, as through a veil, 
The many hues of life shine feebly out, 
And living forms 'gan softly move about me. 
For the first time, I came from my sick chamber 
Supported by my maidens, when Lucretia, 
Full of fresh life, came leading you along. 
You were the first to hail me back to life. 
I hoped fair things for you and for myself, 
And, hitherto, my hope has not deceived me ! 

TASSO. 

And when, confounded by that glorious scene, 

And dazzled by the splendour all around, 

And moved by various passions, wild and strong, 

Along the quiet palace-courts I came, 

Silently with your sister — when you met me — 

O what a moment in my life was that ! 

As the calm presence of a deity 

Heals the enchanted of his ecstacy, 

So was I healed of all my fantasies, 

Of all wild impulses and strivings false, 

With but one glance on your calm countenance. 

My inexperienced mind, in vain desires, 

Had spent itself upon a thousand dreams ; 

Now all ashamed I sank into myself, 

And learned to prize the truly good and lovely. 

So seeks a boy, in vain, o'er the sea-sand, 

A pearl that hidden lies within its shell." 

PRINCESS. 

Bright days, O Tasso, then began for us, 
Had not Urbino's Duke then led away 



" TASSO. 



2S 



Our sister many years might well have passed 
In undisturb'd repose and happiness. 
Since then, alas ! we miss severely here 
The cheerful mind, the bosom full of life, 
And the rich fancy of that lovely woman. 

TASSO. 

I know it hut too well, that since the day 

When she departed from us, none beside 

Has filled the place near thee which she left vacant. 

How often has the thought disturbed my breast ! 

How oft in yon still grove have I lamented ! 

Can no one then fill up a sister's place ? 

Forgive me, Princess, that in such a mood, 

I thought upon myself and longed to show 

The deep devotion that I cherish towards you, 

In life and practice, not in idle words ; 

Yet never could succeed, but oft, I fear, 

Have caused you sorrow by my rash endeavours, 

Offended those whom you would call your friends 

And felt myself when I drew near to serve you 

Still far off from the object I desired. 

PRINCESS. 

Your good will, Tasso, I have ne'er mistaken ; 
But well I know how you are apt enough 
To grieve yourself in vain — not like my sister, 
Who lives with every one so pleasantly, 
After so many years, with scarce one friend 
You feel yourself at home 

TASSO. 

You well may blame me ! 
But name the man or show to me the woman 
With whom I can have converse as with you. 

PRINCESS. 

You surely may confide well in my brother. 

TASSO. 

He is my Prince — wild love of liberty 

Ne'er filled my breast with visionary hopes. 

Man is not born to be at liberty ; 

And for a noble mind no happiness 

Is greater than to serve a worthy Lord. 

He is my Master and I deeply feel 

The meaning comprehended in that word. 

When he speaks I must learn to hear in silence, 

And do what he commands, though heart and mind 

Rise up in contradiction to the law. 

PRINCESS. 

But it needs never be so with my brother ; 

And now we have Antonio again 

I can ensure you a most prudent friend. 

TASSO. 

So once I hoped ; but now almost despair 
Although his counsel might be useful to me 
In thousand cases, although he possesses 
The very qualities of which I fail, 
Though all the Gods assembled to bring gifts 
Around the cradle of this sapient man, 
Alas ! the Graces surely stayed away ; 
And he who has not their endearing gifts 
May be a good and prudent counsellor 
But never can he be a bosom-friend. 

PRINCESS. 

You may confide in him and that's enough, 

You must not seek for all things in one man : 

All that Antonio promises he does. 

Let him resolve to be your friend and he 

Will care for you when you neglect yourself. 

You ought to be united, and I hope 

Ere long to see you join your hands together. 

Only oppose not my good wishes here — 

How long have we had Leonora with us ! 

So gay and affable, yet even in her 

You never found a friend as I desired. 



TASSO. 

I have obeyed you, else I should have kept 

A wider distance from your blithe companion. 

I know not how it is, though amiable, 

She is not what I love in conversation ; 

Even where she seems disposed to show her favour, 

You see design in all her kindliness. 

PRINCESS. 

In this way, Tasso, you will never find 
Companionship amid your fellow-men. 
This way will lead you through the lonely woods, 
Through the still valleys of secluded thought, 
Where, more and more, the mind falls out of tune 
With all the world around and strives in vain, 
To find within itself that golden time 
Which in the outward world is never found, 

TASSO. 

O what a word my Princess speaks to me ! 

That golden time— ah ! whither has it fled ! 

For which the heart so often yearns in vain ! 

When o'er the cheerful earth the sons of men 

In gladsome companies with freedom strayed, 

When in the flowery field the ancient tree 

Shaded the shepherd and the shepherdess ; 

When o'er the purest sands the Naiades 

Guided at will the clear and gentle rills ; 

The harmless snake wound through the grass his way; 

The daring fawn, by the brave youth attacked, 

Fled to the wood, and every creature roaming, 

And every bird that caroll'd in the air, 

Proclaimed to men—" live freely as you please ? " 

PRINCESS. 

My friend, the golden age has pass'd away, 

And yet good minds can bring it back again, 

Yea ; to confess to you my firm belief, 

That golden time of which the poets sing 

Was never more a truth than it is now. 

Or if it ever was, 'twas only so 

That it may always be restored again. 

Still close together true congenial souls, 

And share the joys of all this beauteous world. 

Only your motto I would change a little, 

And rather say : " live truly as you ought ! * 

TASSO. 

O that a company of noble minds 
Would but pronounce a universal law, 
And let us know then how we ought to live I 
We see the great and mighty please themselves, 
Whate'er is useful to them deeming right. 

PRINCESS. 

If you would have your question answered well, 
Go, seek advice of honourable women, 
Whose station and whose interests all depend 
Upon the rules of true propriety, 
Which, like a wall, protects the gentle sex. 
You strive for freedom, we for happiness. 

TASSO. 

You call us then unruly, rude, unfeeling ? 

PRINCESS. 

Not so : but you are always striving on 
In violent desire of far-off things. 
Your cravings run into eternity 
While we would rest contented with our lot 
On some small portion of the lowly earth. 
We never can be certain of your hearts, 
However warmly once you gave them to us ; 
Beauty is perishable, and that alone 
You seem to honour ; all that can remain 
Is dead for you without that transient charm. 
If men would only learn to know and prize^ 
All the dear treasury of truth and love 
The bosom of a woman can enfold ; 



30 



GOETHE. 



If true remembrance might renew past joys ; 
If but your glance, which seems so penetrating, 
Could pierce the veil that age or sickness casts 
Upon us, if you could but rest contented ; 
Then happy days would soon appear for us, 
Then should we celebrate our golden time ! 

TASSO. 

You utter words which stir up many cares 
That, half-asleep, have sheltered in my breast. 



What mean you. 



PRINCESS. 

Tasso ? Tell me all you think. 



TASSO. 

I oft have heard it, and to-day again, 
That noble princes for your hand contend : 
We must expect it — but if you should leave us 
I know not how we can exist without you. 

PRINCESS. 

Dismiss all care about it for the present ; 
I almost said, for ever. I am happy 
Here, and no duty calls me hence away. 
But, if you would retain me where I am, 
Live in good unity about me here : 
I shall be happy in your happiness. 

TASSO. 

teach me to do all that 's possible ! 
Devoted to your service are my days . 
And when to utter praise and gratitude — 
My heart unfolds to thee — 'tis then I feel 
The purest joy that human hearts can know ! 

PRINCESS. 

It is your due that women are your friends, 
For in your song you glorify our sex 
In all its gentler and its bolder traits- 
Even though Armida for a while seem hateful, 
Her charms and her true love soon reconcile us. 

TASSO. 

All that is feebly echoed in my song 

1 owe to one — to one alone I owe. 
It is no ghostly undefined idea 

That hovers o'er my brow, sometimes draws near, 
And then recedes from my enraptured soul. 
No— with these eyes have I beheld the truth, 
The model of the good and beautiful. 
All that I have well-copied must remain — 
Tancred's heroic ardour for Chlorinda, 
Erminia's quiet and unknown devotion, 
Sophronia's greatness, and Olinda's grief ; 
These are not shadows from my fancy thrown, 
I know they are immortal— they are true. 
What more deserves to live through centuries, 
Quietly working on from soul to soul, 
Than the dear secret of a noble love 
Confided to the keeping of the muse ? 

PRINCESS. 

And shall I tell you how it is your song 
Grows so upon us— wins upon our hearts ? 
It leads us on and on in gentle strains. 
We listen still, and seem to understand, 
And all that we can understand we love, 
And thus your song at last possesses us. 

TASSO. 

what a heaven you open now before me ! 
My princess ! if this splendour blind me not, 

1 see, unhoped-for, an immortal joy 
With golden beams descending on my soul. 

PRINCESS. 

No more now, Tasso : many things there are 
Which we must seize with ardour and at once, 
But there are other matters, which alone 
Patience and moderation can ensure us. 



Such is the case with virtue and with love, 
The friend of virtue — this consider well. 

A bright world now expands itself before the 
Poet, who sees all things coloured by the radiance 
of his own genius. Assured of the affectionate 
regard which the Princess cherishes towards him, 
he feels restored to confidence and good-will. He 
is ready to embrace even his suspected foes. But 
though a splendid poet, he is still an uneducated, 
man. He knows not how to make prudence the 
friend and supporter of genius. Whatever he does 
he must do as he writes poetry, by inspiration, dis- 
regarding the cold, harsh rules and habits of actual 
life. He forgets how many minds he has still 
about him not accordant with his own ; that all 
men are not just now in the glow of enthusiasm 
which he feels after the completion of his poem 
and his conversation with the Princess. 

Inspired with devotion towards her, and deter- 
mined to obey her desires, he resolves to make an 
offer of friendship to Antonio, the courtier, the 
politician, and the gentleman. But what the Poet 
does he must do quickly : no time can he allow 
for mutual esteem gradually and truly to unfold. 
Deliberation, in the warmth of his passion, he feels 
to be an insult. 

Antonio's mind is quite in another tone. He has 
not just come from a tender interview with a Prin- 
cess, but from the details of political arrangements 
with the Prince. He receives the Poet coldly, 
hesitates to return the offer of friendship, and re- 
fuses the hand stretched out. 

Tasso's feelings are outraged by this cold recep- 
tion ; and, after the interchange of some satirical 
remarks, the Poet, who so lately vowed devotion 
to the Princess, draws his sword upon her friend, 
when Alphonso steps forward and prevents the 
duel. No medium, no moderation can the offended 
Poet allow ! If Antonio refuses to become his 
sworn friend, he must be regarded as his sworn 
enemy ; and, of course, he will injuriously affect 
the minds of the Duke and all his courtiers, yea, 
the Princess herself, against his rival. Thus Tasso 
yields to a boundless suspicion, and, in a few mo- 
ments, the heaven that was lately opened around 
him is converted into a dismal prison, and he longs 
to flee away and hide himself somewhere — any- 
where — from enemies who have no existence ! He 
listens only to his own heart. He is not calm 
enough to use his senses and perceive the truth of 
the actual world about him. 

After this unhappy quarrel, the Princess blames 
herself for ever having hoped that two such con- 
trary characters would agree. 

Alas ! that we so seldom can remember 

To follow well the whisper from the heart, 

Gentle yet audible, a voice divine 

Bevealing good and warning us from ill. 

To-day Antonio appeared to me 

Sterner than ever, in himself shut up. 

My mind forewarned me when he met with Tasso. 

See but the outward aspects of the men— 

The countenance — the glance — the gait— the tone — 

How opposite ! such strength of contradiction 

Can never melt away in mutual love. 

Yet hope, the flatterer, thus persuaded me — < 

" Both are your friends, both reasonable men — 

Both noble and well cultured, and no bond 

More surely holds than that between the good." 

I urged on Tasso to the interview— 



TASSO." 



31 



How amiably he yielded up himself ! 

O, had I first prepared Antonio ! 

How could I think a man so tried and proved 

To youthful passion thus would yield himself? 

'Tis done — and what remains for us to do ? 

LEONORA. 

How hard the task of reconciling them, 

You feel most deeply. Here is no mistake 

Such as occurs between congenial souls, 

A few words soon will heal up such a wound : 

But here are two men, (I have felt it long) 

Foes ; because nature of the two did not 

Make one great man : and yet, if they were wise, 

They would agree for mutual benefit, 

And go through life together as one man. 

So once I hoped, as now appears, in vain— 

The quarrel of to-day may be forgotten, 

But who can give us surety 'gainst another ? 

'Tis well, perhaps, that Tasso travel hence, 

And stay awhile in Rome, thence go to Florence 

Where, in a few weeks, I can meet with him, 

And exercise my influence as a friend, 

While you with kindness turn Antonio 

Into a friend again— and thus good time 

May do what seems to us impossible. 

In Leonora's subsequent conversation with An- 
tonio, the latter describes well the failings of 
Tasso's character. 

ANTONIO. 

I know him well ; for he is easily known — 

Too proud to hide himself — to-day, perhaps, 

He sinks into himself, as if the world 

Were all enclosed within his single bosom, 

While all things round him vanish from his sight. 

Then suddenly, as if some secret spark 

Of grief or joy or anger lit the mine, 

He breaks forth to reform the world about him. 

Then will he seize on all and master all, 

The world must move accordant with his thoughts, 

And, in a moment, to perfection come 

The gradual growth of many centuries ; 

While evils, that require the patient hand 

Of labour, for long years, for their removal 

Must vanish in the lightning of his eye. 

He of himself demands the impossible, 

That he may next demand the same from others. 

The final cause of all things in a glance 

He longs to comprehend — what scarce can come 

To one mind in a million he would have : 

But he is not the man— be falls, at last, 

Just as he was, into himself again. 

This is a good description of the Poet's failure 
in patience and in the virtue of a true mediation 
between himself and others — between the life 
poetical and the life actual — between the infinite 
possibility and the finite reality. He does not so 
understand the good of the differences and diffi- 
culties of the actual world, as the necessary con- 
ditions of virtue and activity, as to find peace of 
mind, even in the midst of the conflict which they 
produce. 

A conversation with Leonora only serves to 
confirm the Poet in his dismal suspicion that the 
world is a vast confederacy to crush him, that 
Antonio, the type of that world, envies the fight of 
his genius and would drive him forth from all the 
honours of Alphonso's court into the wilderness of 
solitude — there to waste his songs upon the howling 
winds of the desert. Now every subject upon 
which his mind can dwell is tinged with the same 
hue of jealousy. He fears that malicious hands 
will tamper with his immortal Poem and mix their 



tinsel with his gold; and he longs to have the 
work again in his own keeping. 

LEONORA. 

Dear Tasso ! what has happen'd ? Can your anger, 
Your rous'd suspicions thus have alter'd you ? 
We stand amaz'd. Your constant gentleness — 
Your ever-yielding mood, your clear, good j udgment— 
Which grants so well to every man his due— 
Your constancy to bear what must be borne — 
My worthy friend I hardly know you now ! 

TASSO. 

Well ! and suppose all these good traits are lost ! 

Suppose you find a friend you once deem'd rich, 

A beggar ! — but you 're right — I 'm not myself. 

And yet I am as good as e'er I was. 

It seems a riddle ; yet it is not one. 

The quiet moon that charms you so by night, 

With its soft sheen attracting eye and soul, 

Floats through the heavens a pallid cloud, by day, — 

Thus I am by the sun's strong glare eclipsed— 

You know me not — I hardly know myself ! 

LEONORA. 

My friend, I hardly understand your words. 
Explain yourself ! Can the satiric tongue 
Of yon stern man have so offended you 
That you mistake us all ? Confide in me ! 

TASSO. 

Oh, I am not th' offended but the offender 

And punish 'd for my sin — the sword can loose 

The knot of many words : but I am bound. 

You hardly know— nay, start not, tender soul ! 

You find me sentenced to imprisonment. 

The Prince has served me as he might a school-boy. 

With him I shall not reckon ; for I cannot. 

LEONORA. 

You seem far more disturbed than you need be. 

TASSO. 

What ! take you me for such a puny child 
That this slight accident would so confound me ? 
All that has happened hurts me not so much 
As to consider what it must portend. 
Let but my envious foes stand on their guard ! 
I know them all — the field is open now ! 

LEONORA. 

You hold too many falsely in suspicion. 

Antonio never means to be your foe 

As you suspect. The quarrel of to-day— 

TASSO. 

Oh, that I lay aside, and only take 

Antonio as he was and still remains. 

I always hated that important prudence 

Which makes him ever choose to play the master. 

Instead of asking if the hearer's mind 

Already in the way of truth is found, 

He teaches you, right gravely, many things 

You know and feel more deeply than himself; 

Scarce gives attention to a word you speak, 

But always puts some error in your meaning. 

It is a torment so to be mistaken 

By a proud mind that seems to overlook you ! 

Sooner or later we must have divided — 

Later and worse, perhaps. One only Lord 

Will I confess— The Prince who gives me food. 

Him will I follow ; but no other master ! 

Free will I live in thought and poetry — 

The world confines our actions close enough ! 

Tasso here sketches out for Antonio the traits of 
character belonging to the ungenial pedagogue 
usually denominated — a lore. But he goes on to 



32 



GOETHE. 



ascribe to his foe a spirit of deadly envy; and here 
Leonora corrects the offended Poet. 

LEONORA. 

that you saw as clearly as I see ! 

You do mistake — he has not such a heart ! 

TASSO. 

If I mistake, I do it willingly. 

1 '11 think of him as my worst enemy. 

I should be wretched if compell'd to think 
Less sternly of him. 'Tis a foolish thing 
To be for ever yielding : it destroys 
One's very self— and are then other men 
Thus ever yielding to us ? No— ah, no ! 
A man needs, to make up his character, 
The twofold elements of love and hate. 
Night is as necessary as the day, 
And sleep as waking. I will always hold 
This man the object of my deepest hate ! 
Nothing shall rob me of the dismal pleasure 
Of ever thinking of him worse and worse ! 

LEONORA. 

You are in error — even as for the joy 
Of others your imagination works, 
So now it works to make yourself unhappy. 
We must do all we can to break the net 
It weaves around you to imprison you! 
That free and happy you may walk along 
The pleasant path of life again ! Farewell ! 

In a soliloquy, or rather in a colloquy with his 
evil genius, the Poet puts the worst possible con- 
struction upon the advice of Leonora and sees her 
confederated with Antonio in a plot against him. 
Another conversation with Antonio only serves to 
strengthen tins suspicion and leads him to the very 
height of his self-delusion in which, to complete his 
misery, he endeavours to make himself believe that 
even the Princess is unfavourable towards him ; 
because, during the short interval of absence since 
his last discourse with her, she has sent him no 
marks of her favour. 

He now applies to Alphonso and requests the 
Duke to give back the "Jerusalem Delivered," 
upon which he desires to occupy himself in the 
task of improving and polishing. The Duke hardly 
imagines the Poet to be in a proper tone of mind 
for such an employment, and fears lest he should 
vent his vexation in severe hypercriticism upon 
the work of his own genius. But even in the pru- 
dent advice of the Duke, Tasso feels the injurious 
influence of Antonio. On leaving Alphonso, he 
begins another dismal soliloquy, which is interrupted 
by the approach of the Princess. She is indeed his 
guardian angel, the spirit of rest, gentleness and 
preservation, sent to allay the storm of restlessness, 
negation and destruction which agitates his mind. 

PRINCESS. 

Are you determined then to leave us, Tasso ? 
Or do you stay behind at Belriguardo, 
I trust you will not long be distant from us. 
You go to Rome ? 

TASSO. 

I take my way first thither 
And, if my friends receive me favourably, 
As I may hope, with care and patience there 
I hope to bring my poem to perfection. 
There I shall find assembled many men, 
Masters in every province of the mind ; 
And, in that noblest city of the world, 
The very stones speak eloquently to us. 
How many thousand voiceless teachers look 
With solemn majesty upon us there ! 



If there I cannot reach the end proposed, 
Then nowhere— but alas ! I feel too well 
Good fortune ne'er will crown my enterprise ! 
I can but alter, never can complete ! 
I feel it but too well— the mighty art, 
Which cheers and elevates the healthy mind, 
Will only lead me onwards to despair. 
The impulse drives me on. I hasten forth— 
To Naples I must go ! 

PRINCESS. 

But will you venture ? 
The interdict you know is not removed 
Which fell upon your father and yourself. 

TASSO. 

You warn me kindly. I have thought of it. 

Wrapt in a pilgrim's mantle, I shall travel, 

And stealing through the city, where the movements 

Of busy thousands easily conceal one, 

Shall hasten to the shore, where I may find 

Some boat, with market-people, from Sorrento, 

Returning to their homes. With them I sail 

To see my only sister at Sorrento. 

I shall be silent on the passage— then, 

In silence step upon the shore and walk, 

Softly and slowly, up the path, and ask 

At some one's door, "Where dwells Cornelia ? " 

" Show me where dwells Cornelia Sersale." 

Some friendly spinster then will lead the way 

Into the street and point me to the door. 

Thither I step — the children of Sorrento 

Gaze on the wild hair of the gloomy man ; 

Thus 1 approach the threshold— open stands 

My sister's door — I step into the house. — 

PRINCESS. 

Look up, O Tasso ! look, and see the danger 
You hover near in yielding to this humour. 
I pity you — else I might surely ask, 
Is it then noble thus to speak to us ? 
Or generous thus to think but of yourself, 
As if you gave the hearts of friends no pain ? 
Have you forgotten all my brother's kindness ? 
And how his sisters prize your company ? 
Is all then in a moment's revolution, 
Alter'd and gone ?— Tasso, if you will go, 
Leave not behind you grief and care with us. 

[Tasso turns away. 
How pleasant 'tis to give a parting friend 
Some little token of our constant love ; 
A useful garment, or a faithful weapon ! 
You cast away all that our kindness offers, 
And choose, to suit your melancholy mood, 
The pilgrim's scallop, staff, and dusky frock, 
And thus, self-desolating, leave behind 
All the good things you might enjoy with us. 

TASSO. 

And will you not, then, utterly renounce me ? 

O dearest hope ! O comfortable word ! 

Then take me but once more in your protection, 

Leave me in Belriguardo here, or send me 

To Consandoli — send me where you will ! 

The prince has many pleasant country dwellings 

With lovely gardens, where you scarcely spend, 

Through the long year, a day or even an hour. 

Choose the remotest house and send me there ! 

There let my lonely life be solely thine ! 

How would I cherish all the trees for you ! 

In autumn, cover all the citron-trees — 

The flower-beds shall be tended with nice care — 

No path, no corner in the spacious garden, 

But shall declare my zeal and industry ! 

The palace I will make a temple for you ! 

Opening to all the favourable skies 

The windows, that the paintings may not tarnish. 

The cornices, and mouldings of the walls 

Shall be preserved in beauteous cleanliness. 



« TASSO. 



:« 



All through the grounds no pebble shall lie scatter'd, 
No blade of grass shall shoot from any crevice ! 

PRINCESS. 

I find no counsel for you in my bosom, 

No consolation for yourself, — for us ! 

I glance around, to see if Heaven will send 

Some helping hand in this our time of need, 

Reveal some wholesome herb, some soothing draught 

To give you quiet thoughts — to give us peace ! 

The truest word that from our lips can flow, 

The softest healing balsam, works no more ! 

Here I must leave you, Tasso, yet my heart 

Cannot forsake you. 

TASSO. 

Is it possible 
That she is speaking to me now so kindly, 
And I can still distrust her generous soul ? 
Is 't possible, that, even in her presence, 
My base dejection can have master 'd me ? 
No more ! I know you now — I know myself ! 

speak again those words of sweetest comfort ! 
Refuse not your kind counsel — only tell me 
What I can do that I may be forgiven — 

That you may, once more, gladly call me yours ! 

PRINCESS. 

It is but little that we ask of you, 

And yet too much it seems for you to grant : 

You should confide in us more quietly, 

And keep your heart in ease and cheerfulness ; 

When you are happy we are happy too, 

And if you ever find us too impatient, 

'Tis but because we know not how to help you. 

We cannot help you, Tasso, if you shun 

The friendly hand held out to rescue you ! 

TASSO. 

My princess ! now I see you"as at first, 

A heavenly angel coming to my aid ! 

Forgive the cloud before a mortal's eyes, 

Which, for a moment, dared to hide your brightness! 

1 see you now again, and opens wide 
My soul, devoted to your endless praise. 
My heart, again, is full of tenderness — 
My princess stands before me ; what a glow 
Of feeling permeates me ! Is 't a dream ? 

Or madness ? or the passion'of a soul 

Exalted to behold the highest truth ? 

It is the very feeling which alone 

Can make this earth for me a paradise. 

I thought to crush this passion— fought and fought 

Against my deepest being : yea, abjured 

My very self, which all belongs to you ! 

PRINCESS. 

If I must listen longer to you, Tasso, 
Temper that violence which frightens me. 

TASSO. 

Can the cup's rim confine the foaming wine ? 

With every word you elevate my joy— 

With every word your eye shines brighter on me — 

I feel renewed throughout my inmost being, 

From all the chains of misery relieved, 

Free as a god — and all I owe to you ! 

A power unspeakable, which masters me, 

Flows from your lips and claims me for your own. 

Nothing I know, I feel belongs to me— 

All, all is yours : my eyes are blind with light. 

My senses swim— my feet no more sustain me— 

O princess, you have won me, yours for ever ; 

Then take me— take me wholly to yourself ! 

[He attempts to embrace her. 

Here Tasso is wrong again, falling from one 
extreme into the other. Here is no quiet mode- 
ration, no self-possession, no patience ! The gentle 



affection which he should cherish in remembrance, 
as a lovely serene light to cast its radiance over all 
the clouds and storms of life, he would convert into 
the violence of passion, whose sudden lightning 
leaves darkness behind. And thus, 

As high as he has mounted in delight, 
In his dejection does he sink as low. 

Just at this moment of extravagance, Alphonso 
approaches the scene with Antonio, and the Duke 
very naturally exclaims : 

He has lost his senses— hold him fast ! 

And now the blaze of noon is turned to black mid- 
night in a moment ; for Tasso will endure no 
twilight. Next follows the closing conversation 
between the Poet and the prudent Antonio. 

ANTONIO. 

Now stand, as you believe yourself for ever 
Encircled all about with envious foes, 
How would an enemy triumph o'er you now ! 
Unhappy man ! I scarce know what to say. 
When thus some sudden prodigy o'ertakes us, 
We stand awhile in dumb astonishment, 
And find no object for comparison. 

tasso, (after a long pause.) 
Fulfil your office — now I know you well ! 
Yes, you deserve the prince's confidence ! 
Fulfil your duty now— and martyr me ! 
Torture me with slow death— drag to the stake— 
And give me time to feel the barbed hooks 
Tear off my flesh! 

You are a precious tyrant's instrument ! 
Turn gaoler — be an executioner i 
How well such offices become your nature ! 
And go, thou tyrant ! thou hast cast aside 
At last the mask— go now, and triumph o'er me ! 
Your slave is firmly chained, and only spared 
For new-invented tortures— go away — 
I hate thee ! all my soul is full of loathing 
Against thy cruel, arbitrary power ! [After a pause. 
And thus, the end of all is— I am banished ! 
Turned out, and scourged away, like a vile beggar ! 
True: they have crowned me— as they crown thevictim 
With flowers, and forthwith lead him to the altar ! 
Have won from me my only property, 
My Poem, with smooth words, and hold it fast ! 
It might have helped me in another place, 
And saved me from the bitter hunger-pangs. 
I see now why they drove me to complete it — 
'Tis a conspiracy, and you 're its head ! 
That imperfections might disgrace my work- 
That all my foes might find a thousand faults — 
My lines be criticised, and then forgotten — 
My name be lost in dull oblivion — 
For this they led me into idleness. 
O I must cease the labours of my mind ! 

precious friendship ! costly kindnesses ! — 
Rather O dark and foul conspiracy ! 

And thou, soft Syren ! thou so tenderly, 
With such a heavenly charm attracting me— 

1 see thee now. O wherefore see so late ! 
So happily we live on our delusions, 

And honour those who seem to honour us ! 
O when will men but come to know.each other? 
The galley-slaves are the only honest men ! 
Who sit close chained together on one bench, 
Where none can ask for anything, and none 
Has anything to give his fellow-slave — 
Where every one declares himself a rogue, 
And knows that all the rest are — like himself.' 
While we pretend to make mistakes in others, 
That they may turn and flatter us as well ! 
How long that cunning, low-designing soul, 

D 



34 



GOETHE. 



Was covered with'a sanctimonious veil ! 
The mask is dropped — Armida shows herself J 
Lost are her graces ! see, Armida, see 
The hateful truth of my prophetic song ! 
And that sly, listening, plotting go-between, 
How low degraded I behold her now ! 
I hear her delicate eaves-dropping pace — 
I know the circle of her stratagems — 
Enough of this — I know you all at last ;] 
And, if my misery robs me of the rest, 
I have this comfort— now I know the truth! 

Sad truth indeed ! We almost think this sudden 
burst of impatience and suspicion improbable even 
in the morbidly irritable mind of the Poet ; but if 
we have here a true specimen of the declamation 
in which Tasso indulged himself during his fits of 
restless jealousy, we can hardly wonder at the 
worst accounts we have of the impatience and 
harshness of his patron Alphonso. If all the 
brightness and cheerfulness of poetry could so 
suddenly, by some slight accident, be converted 
into the venom and bitterness of satire, such a Poet 
might be an addition to the splendour, but not to 
the happiness of a court. 

ANTONIO. 

I hear you, Tasso, with astonishment ; 
I know how quickly your too-fervid spirit 
Passes the widest distance of extremes. 
But think awhile ! control this sudden rage! 
You utter scandalous words — we may forgive 
But, surely, you can ne'er forgive yourself ! 

TASSO. 

speak no more to me with honeyed lips! 
Give me no more of your dry prudent counsel ! 
Let me alone, and urge me not to think 
Awhile, and then bid farewell to my senses ! 

1 feel crushed down, even to the very core, 
And only live to feel it. Desperation 
Has seized me, and my cries give no relief ! 
I must away ! if you are prudent now, 
Show me the way and help me to escape ! 

ANTONIO. 

I will not leave you in this hour of need. 
Even if you yield to wrath without control 
I will not fail in patience. 

TASSO. 

Then must I yield myself a prisoner to you ? 
Here — take me then — I '11 strive with you no more ! 
Remind me, when you would renew my torment, 
Of all the joys that I have forfeited. 
They haste away. Yonder I see the dust 
Rise from the wheels ; might I follow them 
No : they have left me ; left me here forlorn. 

might I but have kissed her hand once more ! 
And had I but have stammer'd out " forgive ! " 
Perhaps I might have heard " it is forgiven ! " 

1 hear it not — I never more shall hear it — 
But I must follow ! — let me take my leave ! 

Just say " farewell ! " O grant me but one moment — 
One moment in her presence, and perhaps 
I may recover — no ! I am rejected — 
Banish'd, cast out, abandon'd— by myself ! 
That voice I never more shall hear ! that glance 
I never more shall meet — O never more !j 

ANTONIO. 

Hear but the admonition of a man 

Who stands beside you, not without compassion ;— 

You are not yet so wretched as you dream : 

Be manly ! you are yielding far too much !j 

TASSO. 

And am I then as wretched as I seem ? 
Am I as weak as thus I show myself ? 



And is all forfeited ? and has my grief 
Made me a ruin, crushed me to the ground ? 
Have I one power remaining to support me— 
To dissipate the gloom that falls around me ? 
Is all the strength that in my bosom lay, 
Lost, lost for ever ? Am I come to nothing ?' 
Yes : all is gone— my life, my power of thought 
Are gone with her— and I am left— a nothing ! 

ANTONIO. 

And now, upon the point to lose yourself, 
Compare yourself with others— know yourself I 

TASSO. 

There you remind me at the proper moment ! 
Is there no instance in all history 
Of any hero who has suffered more 
Than I have suffered? that comparison 
May make the burden of my mind seem lighter. 
No : all is lost !— One gift alone remains- 
Nature bestowed on man the fount of tears, 
The cry of anguish, to relieve the heart, 
When more it cannot suffer — and to me 
She gave, with all my sorrows, poetry, 
To tell the deepest fulness of my woes ; 
And while in anguish other men are dumb, 
She gives me power to tell the pains I feel. 

[Antonio steps towards Tasso, and takes him by 
the hand. 



noble man ! you stand here firm and still ; 

1 seem but like the tempest-troubled wave. 

But think awhile, and boast not of your strength ; 

The same great nature which makes firm the rock 

Gives to the billow all its agitation. 

She sends her storm— the affrighted billow flees 

And swells and bends, and, foaming, over falls. 

Yet on this billow lately mirror'd lay 

The sun's bright countenance, the gleaming stars 

Rested upon its gently-heaving bosom. 

The quiet is disturbed— the gleam departed ! 

I know myself no longer in the danger, 

And fear no longer to confess to you, 

The helm is broken, and the vessel groans, 

On all sides bursting, and beneath my feet 

The ground on which I stood is giving way. 

I grasp thee firmly here with both my hands ! 

So clings the tempest-beaten mariner 

Close to the rock on which his boat was wrecked ! 

And thus concludes the drama. It may be thought 
that we have chosen a feeble text to illustrate the 
need of education for ardent and imaginative minds. 
Superficially considered, the whole drama, from 
which we have selected a few passages, is nothing 
but the story of a poetical mind thrown into a 
gloomy mood by a fit of jealousy ; but, when more 
carefully studied, it has a deeper meaning. Whether 
Alphonso was wanting in giving due guidance and 
suitable encouragement to such a mind, or whether 
the erroneous bias of the Poet was too violent to 
be moderated by any educational effort, we cannot 
determine. The author of the drama has certainly 
represented the fault as, almost wholly, on the side 
of his brother-poet. He has placed Tasso in 
circumstances where he needed only a little pru- 
dence and self-control to make him happy. Had 
he chosen stronger instances of discouragement 
and misdirection, he might have better excused 
the erring poet. The present times, perhaps, will 
furnish instances of harder strife between the real 
and the ideal, the poetical and the practical elements 
of human life, than any which the court of Alphonso 
could produce. We believe that many are the 
poets, endowed by nature with "the vision and 



HERMANN AND DOROTHEA. 



35 



the faculty divine," but lacking the accomplishment 
of verse and the due encouragement of their 
faculties, who live and die in obscurity. And may 
we not style every mind which rises above the real, 
and possesses the renovating, animating, and 
improving ydos of genius, a poetical mind ? And is 
it not an important question, how we shall give to 
such minds a true education ? 

It must be done by keeping in due inter- 
communion the facts of the practical world and the 
elevating spirit of poetry. The man of poetic mind 
must cultivate a disposition of patience with the 
slow-moving course of improvement and enlighten- 
ment in the world about him. He must not be 
content with protesting against the defects of his 
fellow-creatures, on the strength of his own internal 
feelings ; but he must feel that the genius which 
inspires him is the true catholic element of human 
nature, which penetrates the souls of all. He must 
be content to see those visions of beauty which his 
songs anticipate — the perfect Church — the heavenly 
family — the glorious renovation of society — not 
coming with sudden and triumphant fulfilment of 
the hopes and desires of seers and prophets in all 
ages ; but slowly breaking through the clouds of 
dark and painful realities, beaming forth gently 
as the morning light, and shining more and more 
to the perfect day. He must be patient while he 
sees those errors and clouds of the mind which are 
intuitively rejected by the prophetic light, linger 
on, and require the tedious experience of manifold 
contradictions and palpable absurdity, before they 
will yield to that light. He must neither forfeit 
the real nor the ideal ; but must see good in the 
contradiction between them, as it is the condition 
of faith, constancy, activity, and enterprise. He 
must not hope to live in a region of indolent con- 
templation, where beauty and poetry and truth will 
be always found ready-made all around him ; but 
must feel that he is called to be a maker — to 

Stifle the contradictions of his fate, 
And to one purpose cleave— his being's godlike mate. 

In these days we require the influence of a 
sincere and genial literature to solve the contra- 
dictions which exist between our poetry and our 
actual life, our faith and our practice ; and, to fulfil 
his duty in promoting such a literature, the man 
endowed with the gift of song, must add to the 
power of imagination the virtues of faith, fortitude, 
and patience, and in short, must strive to be a good 
man as well as a great poet. 



CHAPTER VI. 

goethe's Hermann and Dorothea. 

Not without reason, the Germans esteem this 
short epic as one of the gems of their poetical 
literature. Measured by length, it is only a ma- 
gazine-story ; but, measured by the beauty in it, 
it is a greater work than many an epic of twenty- 
four books, or novel of three volumes. Herder 
has noticed that mistake of Aristotle's dictum 
about the necessary greatness of an epic poem, 
which has led some to imagine that the epic must 
weigh a certain number of ounces avoirdupois, 
or contain, at least, twelve heavy books, of a 



thousand lines each, filled with the complicated 
intrigues of heroes and demi-gods, celestial, ter- 
restrial, and infernal. Here Goethe has given us 
a true epic poem, all about an afternoon's adven- 
ture, and ending with the betrothal of an honest 
young farmer to an emigrant girl ! Who will 
believe that this is not only a good but a great 
work ? There is not one of the vulgar, great heroes 
of poetry or fiction in it ; there are no angels 
interfering Avith the plot. The hearts of Hermann 
and Dorothea are the main agents in the story. 
Here is no wandering knight, no wrathful Achilles, 
no tough-hided Ajax, no quarrel, more than will 
happen even in well-regulated families, nothing 
that would call for the interference of the police 
in a Christian country ; and yet there is a battle, 
the greatest and most interesting of all conten- 
tions, in the story — the battle between the honest, 
the healthy, the true ; and the conventional, the 
sickly, the false — between true love and silly 
vanity. 

" Now ! " exclaims our reader, " what is this 

that roars so loud, and thunders in the index ?— 

What does this ' Hermann and Dorothea ' contain 
to deserve all this encomium ? " 

Well, we are not afraid of coming to the proof 
of our assertions ; for, lowly as the story may 
appear to those who love the mock-sublime, we 
can, at least, give some rational account of what it 
teaches. 

The simple question of the story is, whether 
our Hermann, a good, sound-hearted youth, shall 
marry a noble girl, without a fortune, or a silly 
and affected one, with a large bag of dollars to 
make weight. Hermann's father, the host of 
the Golden Lion, is the Jove of our epic, and 
some of his moods of ire make an amusing parody 
on the bad tempers to which Homer's Zeus was 
so unfortunately subject. There is some remem- 
brance of the old quarrels of Jove and his ox-eyed 
wife in the sublime saying, " This is the reward of 
all my patience ! that the most unpleasant thing 
in the world should happen just at bed- time ! you 
may settle it for yourselves, for I shall go to bed ! " 
The host has been scheming, we regret to say, to 
get his son married to the bag of money, with a 
fine young lady tied to it. Hear his paternal 
advice : "Everything is difficult at the beginning, 
and especially housekeeping. Many things are 
wanted, and everything daily grows dearer. So 
mind, Hermann, that you bring home to me for a 
daughter, a girl with a good dowry ! A brave active 
man deserves a rich wife ! Yes, Hermann, you 
will be a comfort to my old age if you bring me a 
daughter-in-law from a certain house, not very far 
off — you know it — the green one. Our neighbour 
there is rich, and his trade is increasing." Sordid 
old fellow ! if he wished to trumpet forth the 
praises of money-getting, why not do it in a 
straight-forward way, saying : " Money is the 
principal thing, therefore get money? " Why bring 
it in under cover of advice on matrimony ? What 
has true love to do with the " price " of provisions, 
the neighbour's " green house," and the " increas- 
ing trade ?" 

But the host of the Golden Lion is as much 

moved by vanity as by avarice. Says he : " Don't 

think to bring a country-maiden here ; I am a 

respectable man, and I will have a respectable 

d 2 



3G 



GOETHE. 



daughter-in-law — one who can play the piano ( !) 
and I '11 have all the respectable company that my 
neighbour has on Sundays. Mind you that ! " 

Well might honest Hermann leave the room, 
when he heard this miserable cant about respect- 
ability ! 

But the host of the Golden Lion, with all this 
nonsense about "pianos," "green houses," and 
" respectable Sunday company " in his head, had 
some goodness at his heart. That was a brave and 
manly deed when he won his wife as she stood upon 
the embers of her father's house : " I will help your 
father to build a new one," said he. The host 
was indeed a worthy man, when contrasted with 
his neighbour, the old bachelor, a snug apothe- 
cary. Hear how this little soul solaces himself : 
" Happy the man who lives alone in these unset- 
tled times : none runs away from danger so easily 
as a single man !" 

Well might Hermann reply : "I totally dis- 
approve what you say : many a good maiden, in 
these days, needs a husband !" 

But we cannot give the spirit of the poem in 
these short extracts ; so we must translate the 
whole of it. 

As we cannot match the German hexameters of 
the original, and as any change of metre would 
only add to our difficulties, without conveying a 
just impression of the humour of Homeric parody 
that now and then amuses us, we must be content 
with a translation into plain English prose. Un- 
like many so-called poems, " Hermann and Doro- 
thea " will bear this somewhat harsh treatment. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Emigrants— The Conversation in the back-parlour of 
the Golden Lion. 

" I never before saw our streets and market- 
place so empty! The town seems to be turned 
inside out ! hardly fifty of our inhabitants, surely, 
are left behind. What a motive is curiosity ! every 
one is running to see these poor emigrants ; — and 
in the hottest part of the day ! Well, for my part, 
I will not move from my place to see the misery 
of these people, driven out of that beautiful country 
of the Upper Rhine, and now, with only a few shreds 
of their property, wandering through our fruitful 
valley. But you have done well, wife, in sending our 
son, Hermann, with the bundle of linen and some 
provisions ; for we, who have something comfort- 
able, ought to give to the poor in days like these. 
How briskly our Hermann set out in our new 
phaeton, which looks very neat, and will hold four, 
beside one on the driving-box ! " 

This speech was addressed to his wife by the 
Host of the Golden Lion, who was sitting at the 
doorway of his house, in the market-place. 

" Well, father," said the good hostess, " I am in 
general unwilling to give away old linen, as it is 
useful for many purposes, and not always to be 
had even for money ; but, to-day, I have willingly 
given away many pieces of good clothing ; for I 
heard of tender children and aged people going 
almost naked. But can you forgive me ? — for I 
have plundered your chest, and sent away your bed- 
gown with Indian flowers upon it. 'Tis of the finest 
cotton, and lined with flannel ; but old, faded, and 
quite out of fashion." 



The Host laughed, and said : " Truly, I am 
unwilling to miss the old gown ; for you cannot 
buy one like it now. But it matters not; for I 
could not wear it. Night-cap and slippers (for 
morning dress) are not in fashion." 

" See ! " said the Hostess, " here come the 
people, with hot faces and dusty shoes ; I would 
rather hear the story from them than run and 
make myself miserable with the spectacle of the 
poor emigrants." 

" 'Tis rare, fine harvest-weather," said the hus- 
band. " We shall get in the corn, I hope, as well as 
we secured our hay. There is not a cloud in the 
sky. A soft wind is blowing. To-morrow we shall 
begin cutting." 

As he spoke, the people, returning from their 
visit to the party of emigrants, were gathering in 
the market-place. Among them was conspicuous 
the rich neighbour of the Host, who drove his 
three daughters in a gay landau. He was the 
first merchant in the town, and lived in a very 
handsome house. 

The Host and his good wife amused themselves 
with various comments upon the people who passed 
by. " See," said the Hostess, " here comes the 
Parson, and with him our good neighbour the Apo- 
thecary. We shall get all the news from them." 

The two gentlemen thus mentioned approached 
and seated themselves upon the bench beside the 
door, then wiped the dust from their shoes, and 
fanned themselves with their handkerchiefs. 

" Such is mankind ! " exclaimed the Apothecary 
— " one is just like another. All run eagerly to 
stare when a misfortune overtakes a neighbour. 
These people have been running to see the poor 
refugees, and how few reflect that soon the same 
misfortune may come upon themselves ! Sad 
thoughtlessness ! — but such is human nature." 

Now the Curate was a good and sensible man, 
though young, an ornament to the town, well 
versed in all that the scriptures and other books 
tell of human character and history. Thus he 
replied to the Apothecary : — " I am unwilling to 
blame the innocent instinct of curiosity which nature 
has planted in us all ; for, often, a simple instinct 
will ao more good than all our reasonings. But for 
curiosity, how would men come to see all that is 
beautiful and good in the world ? At first, we simply 
seek what is new ; then we inquire for what is use- 
ful; and at last, we learn to seek for that which is 
good. Neither can I blame that lightsomeness of 
mind which so gaily accompanies the youth, and 
soon clears away from his remembrance all traces 
of suffering ; but I praise most highly the man who 
adds to the lightsomeness of youth a mature under- 
standing, who both in good fortune and misfortune 
strives on actively and heartily, securing the good 
and making amends for the evil." 

Here the Hostess interrupted the moralising 
strain. "Tell me," said she, "what you have 
seen ; for I long to hear it." 

" I scarcely feel well enough to tell it," said the 
Apothecary — " such a multitude of miseries have 
I seen ! At a distance we saw the cloud of dust follow- 
ing the steps of the emigrants. When we came up 
to them, what a confused array we found of travel- 
lers in waggons and on foot ! It was sad to behold 
the various articles of domestic economy, lately 
placed in orderly array in comfortable houses, now 
confusedly thrown together among the luggage. 



"HERMANN AND DOROTHEA.' 



37 



Here, upon a chest, lay a sieve and there a bed 
was packed up in a kneading-trough. Danger 
takes away from people their presence of mind, 
and thus, on their sudden flight, these poor emi- 
grants had taken many little, insignificant things, 
while they had left articles more valuable behind. 
So they had a load of useless lumber with them, 
such as old boards, barrels, hencoops, and bird- 
cages. The poor women and children crouched in 
the waggons among the miscellaneous lumber. 
All was disordered and confused, and, among the 
cries of the women and the children, the lowing 
of oxen and the barking of dogs, I felt miserable 
enough. Then, suddenly, an axle-tree was broken, 
the waggon rolled over into the field and scattered 
the poor women and children about. We hasted 
to the scene of this disaster, and found the sick 
and the aged (who had need of good nursing in 
bed) complaining of the miseries of their journey." 

" I hope," said the Host, " our Hermann will 
find these poor creatures and give them some 
comfort ; but I am glad that I did not go myself ; 
for I cannot bear the sight of misery. But let us 
not dwell on these gloomy impressions, for fear 
soon takes possession of the heart, and care (which 
I hate more than calamity itself) is always ready 
to enter. Come, let us go into the back parlour, 
a cool and pleasant room in summer ; for there 
the sun never shines too warmly, and the walls are 
thick enough to keep out both summer's heat and 
winter's frost. Mother, bring us a bottle of the 
wine of 1783, to drive away all dismal thoughts. 
We cannot drink comfortably here, with the flies 
buzzing about our glasses." 

So the friends went to enjoy the coolness of the 
back parlour; and the careful Hostess brought out 
a flask of clear, generous wine and green tumblers 
worthy of the excellent Rhenish. The three 
neighbours seated themselves round the deep- 
brown, well-polished table, which stood upon massive 
feet. The glasses of the Host and the Curate 
jingled together cheerfully ; but the third held his 
glass thoughtfully and delayed to drink until thus 
challenged by the Host : - — " Come, neighbour, 
drink ! God has saved us from misfortune, and will 
protect us still. Who cannot see, how, since the 
dreadful fire which tried us severely, he has 
kept us as a man keeps the apple of his eye ? And 
will He allow the foe to destroy this flourishing 
town, which has been raised up again so brightly 
from its ashes \ " Next spoke the good Curate — 
"Hold fast to that faith, friend, and keep that 
hopeful temper. It will keep you assured in your 
good fortune, and give consolation in the hour of 
adversity." Then spoke, manfully, again the Host 
of the! Golden Lion : — " How often have I said, 
' The Rhine ! be blessings on the Rhine ! ' when- 
ever I travelled along its banks. I always thought 
it a noble river ; but never foreboded that, as is 
now the case, its bank would be a wall against the 
French, and its bed a grave for our foes ! Thus 
nature protects us, our brave Germans shield us, 
and God guards us all : — then why should we be 
childishly fearful % The people are tired of the 
war ; all things give signs of peace, and when 
peace is celebrated in our Church I should like my 
son, Hermann, to lead a well-chosen bride to the 
altar and so make the day a festival in our family. 
But I am sorry to see the youth, who is active 
enough about the house and the farm, dull and 



awkward in company, avoiding even the society of 
the young maidens of our neighbourhood, and 
caring nothing for the dance, with which other 
young people are delighted." — Here the Host 
broke off his speech ; for he heard the wheels of 
the phaeton in the gateway. 



CHAPTER II. 

Hermann arrives— The Conversation is resumed — Advice 
on Matrimony — A Quarrel. 

As the tall and well-formed youth stepped into 
the back-parlour, the Curate gazed upon him with 
the eye of a good physiognomist, and then cheer- 
fully addressed him. "My young friend," said 
he, "you come home like a new man. I have 
never before seen such a lively expression on your 
countenance. I am sure you have been doing an 
act of benevolence, and have received the blessings 
of the poor." Hermann answered, earnestly : 
" Whether I have done well or not I cannot say ; 
but I have done as my heart commanded me, and 
you shall hear all about it. Mother, you were 
long in seeking the pieces of old linen, and some 
time was spent in getting ready the wine and the 
beer. When I got out into the street many people 
were returning from their visit to the emigrant 
party. I hastened along the new road towards 
the village where the poor people intended to 
spend the night. On my way I overtook a waggon 
drawn by a yoke of oxen, guided by a stout maiden 
who, when she saw that I noticed her, approached 
and said : — ' Sir, it was not always so with us, nor 
am I accustomed to ask strangers for help ; but 
hard necessity now compels me. Here, upon the 
straw in this waggon, lies a poor woman just 
escaped with her life from a comfortable home, and 
now with a new-born child naked in her arms. If 
you live in this neighbourhood, Sir, and could 
spare any articles of clothing, 0, bestow your 
bounty upon the poor ! ' As the maiden spoke, 
the poor woman in the waggon raised her pale face 
from the straw and looked at me. Said I, ' Surely 
a heavenly Spirit forewarns good people of coming 
necessities ; for my mother has done as if she had 
fore-known your disaster, and has packed up for 
you a bundle of suitable clothing.' So I untied the 
bundle and gave her the old gown and the other 
articles. She received them with great joy and 
exclaimed : — ' the fortunate believe not in won- 
ders ! 'Tis only in our misery that we see and 
confess the finger of God, which points out to good 
men the way to do good. May He reward you ! ' 
I saw the poor woman upon the straw take the 
gown and feel its comfortable flannel-lining. Then 
said the maiden, goading on the oxenj ' We must 
hasten to the village where our company must rest 
to-night, and there I can prepare the clothing for 
the child.' Again she expressed her thanks to me 
as she proceeded on her way. I stood awhile, 
doubting whether I should go on to the village and 
distribute the provisions among the people, or 
commit all to the care of this maiden. I decided 
on the latter ; so, when I had again overtaken the 
waggon, I said : — l Good maiden, my mother has 
sent with me not only clothing but also food for 
the poor people, and I am inclined to put all the 
provisions into your hands, for you must know best 
how to distribute them.' 



38 



GOETHE. 



" ' I will distribute them faithfully,' said the 
maiden ; and I instantly opened the box and took 
out the hams and the loaves, with the bottles of 
Avine and the barrel of beer, and gave all to her. 
She packed them up well in the waggon, then 
thanked me again, and drove on." 

As Hermann ended his narration the neigh- 
bourly Apothecary began : — 

" Happy the man who, in these days of trouble 
and uncertainty, lives all alone in his house, with 
no wife nor children dependent upon him ! I feel 
myself a fortunate man just now, and would not 
be called ' father' on any account ; nor have the 
care and anxiety of a wife and family. I have 
thought how the enemy might arrive here, and I 
might have to take to flight ; and I have packed 
up all the most valuable of my things — my gold, 
and the chain my good mother gave me, of 
which I have not lost a link. True, a good deal 
remains behind which would not be so easily 
carried away, such as my collection of plants and 
roots, which I should not like to lose, though their 
value is but a trifle. But, give me a few of my 
valuables, and my body safe and sound, and I have 
saved all. No one runs away from danger so 
lightly as a single man." 

" Neighbour," replied young Hermann, with 
great earnestness, " I by no means think with 
you. I disapprove altogether what you say. Can 
any worthy man, either in good fortune or bad, be 
contented to think only of himself, and feel no dis- 
position to share his joys and sorrows with others ? 
For my part, I would rather be married to-day 
than not ; for many a good maiden, in these days, 
needs a protecting husband, and many a man needs 
the cheerful company of a wife." 

Then the father laughed and said, " I like that, 
my son. Seldom have I heard from you such a 
reasonable speech." 

And then spoke the mother : — " You are right, 
Hermann, and your parents have set you a good 
example. For your father and I chose each other 
on no pleasant day, but in the gloomiest hour this 
town ever knew. Come Monday morning, it will 
be twenty years since ; for the great fire was on 
a Sunday. It was a dry sultry season, and very 
little water was left about the place ; the people 
were walking out, hi their Sunday finery, to the 
neighbouring villages, when the fire began at one 
end of the town. The flame spread along the 
streets and devoured the stacks of dry corn and 
reached the market-place here, burned down my 
father's house and the house that stood here. We 
saved but a little of our goods ; and I sat, all that 
dismal night, in the field, keeping watch over the 
rescued furniture, and fell asleep towards morning. 
When I woke, I saw the smoke curling up from the 
glowing walls of the hollow houses ; but the sun 
arose brightly and cheered my mind. I hastened 
to look at the ruins of our house, and to see if my 
poultry had escaped, (for I was a childish creature 
then ;) and as I stepped over the hot ruins your 
father came up beside me ; for the fire had de- 
stroyed the partition between our two houses. Said 
he, e How come you here, Bessy, to burn your 
shoes upon the embers ? for they have scorched 
my thick-soled boots.' Then he lifted me up and car- 
ried me over the embers, and when he set me down, 
with a kiss, he said, ' See, our house is down ; and 
now if you will help me to rebuild it, I will help 



your father to build a new one.' I hardly knew 
what he meant, till he sent his mother to talk to my 
father, and our match was soon made. And glad am 
I when I think even of that sad day for the town, 
and glad am I to hear that, in these troubled days, 
too, I have a son who dares think of a maiden." 

" All very true," said the father, " and the 
doctrine is good. But better is better. It does 
not fall to every one's lot to begin the world anew 
for himself as we did. Happy is the son who in- 
herits a good house and property, and spends his 
life to make it better ! Every beginning is diffi- 
cult, and especially the beginning of housekeeping. 
Many things are wanted, and everything daily 
grows dearer. So, see you to it, Hermann, that 
you bring to the house a maiden with a good 
dowry ; for a brave active man deserves a rich 
wife ; and how comfortable everything seems when 
along with the desired maiden comes in something 
to fill the chest and the basket ! And how com- 
fortable a new wife feels in the house where the 
tables are covered with her own furniture, and 
the bed is decked with her own coverlet ! A poor 
wife will be sure to be despised ; and if she came 
to the house like a maid-servant, with a bundle 
under her arm, she must expect to be treated like 
a maid-servant. Yes, Hermann, you will be a 
comfort to my old age if you will only bring me a 
daughter-in-law from a certain house, not very 
far off — you know it — the green one. The man is 
rich and his trade is making him richer every day. 
Of the three daughters, the eldest I know is en- 
gaged ; but the other two are still to be had, 
though there is no time to lose ; and if I were in 
your place you should not find me hesitating." 

Then the son answered modestly: — " Truly, I 
was of your mind once, and thought of one of our 
neighbour's daughters. For we were brought up 
together and often played together near the spring 
in the market-place. But now they are finely edu- j 
cated. I have sometimes been to the house for 
the sake of old acquaintance ; but I can never 
enjoy myself there, for they have always some 
fault to find in me. My frock was too long, or 
my °neck-cloth too coarse, or my hair was ill- 
brushed. At last I dressed myself out as near as 
I could like one of the gay apprentices who show 
themselves in the streets on Sundays ; but that 
would not do. When I went at Easter in my new 
coat, which hangs on the chest there, they tittered 
as I entered the room. Nell sat at the piano, and 
her father sat beside her, delighted to hear her 
play. I did not understand what they were sing- 
ing, but I heard a great deal about Pamina and 
Tamino ; and, as I did not like to be dumb, I 
asked, ' who was Pamina and who was Tamino ? ' 
Then they aU began to laugh, and the father said, 
( Surely, our friend here has heard of no couple | 
since Adam and Eve.' Then all the company j 
laughed loud again, and the old man had to hold 
in his sides. And as they played and smig again, 
I heard the tittering continued ; so I hastened 
home, pulled off my fine coat and hung it upon 
the chest, stroked down my hair with my fingers, 
and swore that I would never cross their threshold 
again. And I have done right ; for I know they 
are vain and heartless, and I hear that they call 
me, to this day, Tamino." 

Then said the mother, " You should not be 
angry with them so long on account of a little play. 



« HERMANN AND DOROTHEA.' 



39 



Remember, they are still but children ; and Nelly 
was always kindly disposed toward you, and asked 
after you lately. You must choose her." 

" I know not how it is," said the son ; " but I 
cannot forget it. I am sure I do not want to see 
her at the piano again, nor to hear any of her 
songs." 

Then the father began in anger : — " Little joy 
shall I ever have from you. I always told you 
that you only did for me about the house and farm 
what any good serving-man would do as well. 
Your mother deceived me with good; hopes when 
you sat on the lowest bench at school, and could 
never get on hi reading and writing as others did. 
This comes of having a son without a spark of 
honour in his bosom ! If my father had sent me 
to school, as I sent you, I should have been some- 
thing better than the host of the Golden Lion." 

Hermann left his seat and walked silently 
towards the door ; but his father continued in 
anger : — u Go along then, headstrong as you are ; 
go and see to the farm-yard ; for which I do not 
thank you. But don't think to bring me here a 
country maiden for my daughter-in-law. I 'm a 
respectable man, and have kept a respectable 
house, and I '11 have a respectable daughter-in-law — 
one who can play the piano — and;l '11 have all the 
respectable company that my neighbour has on 
Sundays : mind you that ! " Hermann opened the 
door and left the room in silence. 



CHAPTER III. 

Further Conversation. 

When Hermann had left the room, his father 
proceeded with the same strain of discourse. 
" What is not in a man will never come out of him ; 
and hardly, if ever, will my best hopes have ful- 
filment, that the son should be better than his 
father. What must become of a house, of a town, 
if each generation does not try to make improve- 
ments upon the old ? Shall a man grow up like a 
mushroom and sink down again on the sod that gave 
him birth, without leaving a trace of his life and 
activity % How easily you may discover in a house 
the character of its master ! as you can tell who are 
in the corporation by the condition of a town. Where 
the walls are falling out of repair and heaps of rub- 
bish lie in the passenger's way, where houses nod 
over the street and threaten to fall, you may be sure 
the place has bad overseers. For where order 
and respectability are not made to descend from 
the upper classes upon the lower, there you will 
find the people accustoming themselves to a dirty 
slovenliness, as beggars get used to their rags. 
For this reason I have thought that Hermann 
should travel awhile, and at least see Strasburgh 
and Frankfort, and the nicely-built town of Mann- 
heim, a cheerful, friendly-looking place. When 
one has seen good and well-ordered towns, he will 
not rest till he has done something to improve his 
own town, or, at least, his own house. Does not 
every stranger applaud our newly-decorated door- 
way, our white-washed steeple, and our beautified 
church ? And have not all these improve- 
ments, with many others, taken place since the 
dreadful fire of twenty years ago ? I was six 
times on the Committee of Building and Improv- 
ing, and gained considerable credit ; for I set all 



my colleagues in activity by my suggestions ; and, 
once set a going, see ! where will improvement 
stop \ But I fear it will not be carried on well by 
the rising youth ; for a great part of them think 
only of idle pleasure-taking and useless finery, and 
others will sit brooding near the old stove in the 
house all their days, and I fear our Hermann will 
be one of the latter class." 

Then spoke the good and sensible mother : — 
" You are always unjust toward our son, and, in 
this way, you will never have your hopes fulfilled. 
We cannot have children made just to our liking ; 
but we must take them as God gives them, and 
train them as well as we can. One has this gift, and 
another has that : let every one use his own gift 
well, and every one may be good and happy in his 
own way. I will not have my Hermann abused, 
for I know he has goodness in him ; and some 
day he will rise to be an honourable man, a 
pattern for the townspeople. But, from day to 
day, you drive him about with your hard words 
and cramp all the courage he has in his bosom, 
even as you have done to-day." So saying, she 
left the room, and hastened after Hermann, to 
comfort him with kind words ; for he was an 
excellent son, and deserved kind treatment. 

As soon as she was gone the father laughed 
and said, " Women, like children, are wonderful 
creatures, loving their own way, and only pleased 
when they are flattered and coaxed. But the old 
proverb is true, < He who does not go forward 
goes backward.' So it is." 

Then spoke the Apothecary, thoughtfully : — " I 
agree with you, neighbour, and am myself dis- 
posed to improvement, so that it be not too costly ; 
but, now-a-days, unless one has a large fund of 
money, 'tis dangerous work to begin improvements. 
I should have done many things, but who does not 
fear the outlay in these hazardous times ? Long 
ago I would have had my house all in the mode, 
and with broad panes in the casements ; but who 
can hope to rival the merchant yonder, who, 
beside all his riches, has the advantage of getting 
everything on the most favourable terms % See 
the house over the way ! how tastefully the white 
garnish looks out from the green ground, and the 
large window-panes make all the other houses look 
darksome ! And yet, you remember, soon after 
the fire, our houses, the Apothecary at the Angel, 
and the Golden Lion, were the finest in the town. 
And, at that time, my garden was talked of all 
through the neighbourhood, and every stranger 
stood awhile to stare through the red palisades at 
my two stone beggars and the painted dwarfs. 
My grotto too, where I often took coffee, was an 
object of admiration, for there I had decorated the 
sides with nicely ordered shells, corals, and spars. 
Now it is almost fallen to ruin. My paintings too, 
in the chamber, were once thought worth looking 
at, where the gay gentlemen and fine dames handed 
flowers with fine-pointed fingers. But who will 
admire such things now ! I am too much behind 
the fashion to go much out of doors ; for all things 
must now be so neat and so tasteful, forsooth ! — 
We must have no more carving and gilding, but 
all must be smooth and polished, and this foreign 
wood, this mahogany, bears a dear price. I should 
like to go with the times ; but I dare not change 
an article, for only begin, and who knows how 
many work-people you will soon have about your 



40 



GOETHE. 



house ? I have thought lately of having the angel 
Michael and the Dragon at his feet, over my 
laboratory, gilded ; but I shall leave them both 
brown as they are, for the cost is too frightful." 



CHAPTER IV. 

Hermann's Confession. 

Meanwhile, as the neighbours talked thus 
together, the mother had sallied out in search of 
her son. And "first she sought him at his usual 
seat, the stone-bench in the gateway : as he was 
not there, she hastened into the farm-yard, where 
a servant told her that Hermann had gone into 
the garden. As she passed through the garden, 
she adjusted the props of the apple trees, and 
picked off the caterpillars from the cauliflowers ; 
for an industrious housewife takes no step in vain. 
But when she reached the arbour at the end of the 
garden, Hermann was not there. However, the 
door was left open which led into the vineyard. 
Through the vineyard she passed, delighted with 
the fine show of grapes ; but as she called aloud the 
name of her son, no answer was returned save by the 
talkative echo of the old tower. Seldom had she 
thus to seek her son ; for he never left home 
without telling her his business, and was always 
punctual to the promised hour of return. The 
farther gate of the vineyard was open, and she 
stepped out into the field, still upon her own 
ground, enjoying the prospect of a rich harvest, 
and directed her steps to the famous pear-tree 
which marked the boundary of the land belonging 
to the Golden Lion. In the shadow of the tree 
was a verdant bank, and here she found her son 
sitting, resting his head upon his hand, and look- 
ing over the fields to the distant hills. She crept 
up softly behind and touched his shoulder, and, as 
he turned hastily round, she saw the tears in his 
eyes. 

" Mother ! " said he, hastily dashing away the 
tears. " How is this, my son," said she, " that I 
find you, alone and sad, here I What troubles 
your heart, and what brings the tears to your 
eyes ? " 

" Mother," he replied, " that man can have no 
heart in his iron bosom who feels not for the sad 
case of these refugees, and he has no sense in his 
head, who is not concerned about his own safety 
and the welfare of our Fatherland in these days ! 
What I have seen and heard this morning has 
touched my heart. And just now I came out and 
saw this fine country, and these rich fields and hills, 
promising us full granaries ; but ah ! how near is 
the foe ! The Rhine, indeed, flows between him 
and us ; but what are rivers and mountains for 
defences against such an enemy ! And shall a true 
German stay at home and hope to escape the ruin 
which threatens us all ? Dear mother, I tell you 
I am grieved to-day that they excused me from 
the last drawing for soldiers. 'Tis true, I am the 
only son ; but would it not be better to withstand 
the foe on the boundary of our land than here to 
wait for servitude ? I feel aroused to go and live 
and die for Fatherland, and set a good example to 
other youths. Surely, if Germany united her 
strength on the boundary, that foe should never 
tread down these corn-fields, consume the fruit of 
our labours, and insult our wives and maidens ! 



See, mother, I am resolved to do as my heart bids 
me ; for he who hesitates long does not always 
make choice of the best way. See, I will return 
to our house no more — from this place I hasten 
straight into the town, and give up to the army 
this arm and this heart to strive for Fatherland ! 
Then let my father say if I have no spark of 
honour in my bosom, and no disposition to rise 
high in the world ! " 

Then the good mother replied, with tears upon 
her cheeks, " My son, what has so changed your 
mind that you no longer speak openly and freely 
to me ? Now if a third person heard you he 
might praise your noble resolution ; but see ! I 
know you better ! You are hiding your heart 
from me, and have quite other thoughts from 
those you have told. You have no care to shine 
in a helmet before the maidens — the drum and 
the trumpet have no charms for you ! Brave as 
you are, your work is, you know, to stay at home 
and take care of the house and the fields. So, 
now tell me freely what drives you to this new 
resolution ? " 

Then said the son earnestly : — " Mother, you 
mistake me. One day is not like another. The 
youth grows up to a man ! And often in stillness 
he is ripened better to great deeds than in the 
mid tumult of the world. Still as I have been, 
there is a heart in my bosom that hates all injus- 
tice, and wrong and labour has nerved my arm 
and made firm my foot. / feel all is true in me 
and I dare assert it boldly ! And yet, again, 
mother, you are right ; for I have not told you 
all. 'Tis not the danger that threatens us that 
has aroused me to-day to present my breast to the 
foe. I know the single individual who gives him- 
self up to that for which all are not striving, gives 
himself away for nothing." 

" Come, go on," said the mother, " and fairly 
tell me all ; for I know men are hasty, and only 
think of extremes, and are soon put out of the 
way with a little hindrance ; but we women are 
more patient, and know how to choose means and 
to go a roundabout way to get to our object. 
Come tell me all that has moved you so much 
to-day ; for I can see now the tears are ready to 
start." 

Then the youth surrendered himself to his 
feelings. He leaned on the bosom of his mother 
and wept. " 'Tis my father's unkind words that 
have hurt me to-day," said he ; "for I never 
deserved them. I have always honoured my 
parents, and many things I bore when a boy, 
when my school-fellows plagued me in every way ; 
but if they dared to mock my father, as he came 
out of church on the Sunday, in the old gown I 
have given away this morning, then I clenched 
my fist at once, and, Avere they big or little, I made 
them repent. And so I have grown up to bear 
not a little from my father. When any of his 
colleagues vexed Mm in the council, he would dis- 
charge his vexation upon me, and you have often 
pitied me. But I bore it ; for I thought of the 
honour due to parents, who labour to leave some- 
thing behind for us. But 'tis not this that can 
make us happy. No ; not house added to house, 
and field to field can do that ! The father grows 
old and the son grows up, anxiously troubled 
about the morrow and not enjoying to-day. Look 
down there at the corn-fields, the vineyard, the 



« HERMANN AND DOROTHEA. 



4! 



garden ! Surely we have riches enough ; but 
over the garden-trees see my chamber-window in 
the roof. Out of that window have I gazed many 
an hour in the evening and in the morning, and how 
still and lonely seemed all these fields and yonder 
hills ! All things seemed empty for me. I 

needed something better. Mother, I want a 

wife ! " 

Such was Hermann's Confession, and thus 
answered the sensible mother : — 

"My son, you cannot desire a good wife, to 
make your whole existence happier and to make all 
your labour seem lighter and better, more than 
your father and myself wish you such a comfort. 
We have long been persuading you to make your 
choice. But I know that, unless the right hour 
comes and the right maiden at the right time, the 
choice may be long undetermined. And fear oft 
persuades to a false choice. But, to tell you all 
that I think, I believe you have chosen ; for I see 
that your heart is touched more deeply than ever 
before : now tell me at once, for my soul tells me 
now — 'tis that maiden you saw among the refugees 
— you have surely chosen her /" 

" Mother, you speak it !" said Hermann, " yes, 
she is my choice ! and if I bring her not home as 
my bride, soon she will be gone hence and vanish 
from me for ever, lost in the confusion and trouble 
of our times ! Then, mother, vain will be for me 
all the possessions you have in store for me ! Vain 
will be future harvests for me ! I shall never 
more enjoy yon house and yon garden ! Ah ! and 
the love of a mother will not comfort me then ! For 
I feel now, that as love ties his knot, he loosens 
every other. So let me go where my desperation 
drives me, since my father's house is no home for 
me if this maiden be shut out ; and you know he 
has spoken the word." 

Then spoke the good mother again. " This is 
just the way of men, when they differ. They stand 
like two rocks asunder, and neither will say the 
first word to lead to a good understanding of each 
other. Come, I have a good hope that your father will 
yet allow you the maiden, if she is good and clever, 
however poor she may be. You know he is often 
warm after his cup of wine, and says many things 
that he never does. 'Tis the liquor that rouses his 
hot spirit and prevents him from hearing and 
attending to any one but himself. But towards 
evening he is sure to grow milder, and by this 
time our good neighbours have talked him into 
good humour. Come, let us go to him at once. A 
bold venture is likeliest to succeed, and I depend 
much on the help our good Curate will give us." 

So she said, and aroused her son from his seat, 
and both walked home in silence, musing upon the 
weighty concern in hand. 



CHAPTER V. 
Consultation — Inquiry. 

Meanwhile the three friends sat together in the 
back-pai'lour of the Golden Lion, engaged in 
conversation which rambled hither and thither. 

" You are right, my friend," said the Curate ; 
" we should always aspire to the higher and better : 
but you must not go too far with your argument ; 
for beside this striving for improvement, nature 
has given us a disposition to cleave to that which 



is old and well-known. Every condition is good if 
it be natural and reasonable. Men may desire 
many things, but they need only a few ; for our days 
are few, and confined is the destiny of mortals. I 
by no means blame the man who is always striving 
to add to his possessions ; but I also admire the 
quiet contentment of the man who rests in his 
small paternal estate with a confident satisfaction, 
knowing that he has enough. I think that you 
should commend the quiet and satisfied temper of 
your son, and I only hope that he may gain a wife 
of his own temper." 

So spake the Curate, and just then the mother 
entered, leading Hermann by the hand, and placed 
him before his father. Said she : — " We have often 
longed for the day when our son would make his 
choice, and have always desired that he should 
choose heartily for himself ; and now, it seems, the 
desired hour has come. Our Hermann has made 
his choice and has chosen the maiden he met among 
the refugees. Come, father, he has decided like a 
man, and you must give him the maiden." 

Then spoke Hermann : — "Give her to me, 
father ! my heart has chosen her, and I promise 
you a worthy daughter." 

But the father was silent ; so the Curate began : — 
" A moment often decides over the whole life and 
destiny of a man ; for, after long deliberation, the 
resolution is the work of a moment, and it is 
dangerous to hover about in hesitation and confi 
the mind. Hermann is a good youth, and I have 
known him from childhood, — not one of those who 
stretch out the hand after this and that ; but he 
hneio always well tvhat he wanted, and held it fast 
I can see now that he is decided, and such a 
decision makes the youth a man at once. He will 
not be easily moved. Therefore deny him not, 
lest you make the best hours of his life miserable." 

Then cautiously spoke the Apothecary : — " Let 
us keep in the safe middle-path. 'Make haste 
slowly,' was the motto of the Emperor Augustus. 
I am willing to give my best help in this matter. 

" If you will allow me, I will undertake the office 
of a spy. I will go and make inquiries about this 
maiden, and you may depend upon me ; for I am 
not easily deceived in these matters." 

" Do so, neighbour," exclaimed Hermann ; " go 
and make all the inquiry you choose ; but I should 
like the Curate to accompany you. Two such 
gentlemen must be sufficient witnesses. Oh father, 
you may depend upon it, this maiden is no un- 
certain character ; but you know these are days 
when even the daughters of princes are not secure 
from the hand of misfortune. Oh, how kindly she 
cares for others and seems to forget her own 
troubles ! Surely she is of no mean family ; why 
should not good fortune come out of this misery as, 
twenty years ago, you found a good wife in the 
midst of the dreadful fire ? Let me, father, rejoice 
in the good fortune sent hither by the war, as you 
have rejoiced in the good fortune that attended 
the burning of the town." 

Then the father significantly opened his mouth 
and said: — "How is your tongue loosened so 
suddenly, Hermann, after sticking fast between 
your teeth so many years % I find now the old 
saying true, when a hot-headed boy opposes his 
father, his mother is sure to take his side and get 
all the neighbours to help her. But I shall not 
withstand all four of you : what good if I did ! for 



42 



GOETHE. 



I see bad temper and crying all ready if I stand 
out against you. So you may go and make all 
the inquiry you like, and if all is found right, bring 
the maiden home — if not, he must try to forget 
her." 

With little more delay, Hermann got ready the 
phaeton to conduct his friends and counsellors, the 
Curate and the Apothecary, to the village where the 
refugees were staying. He drove them within a 
short distance of the village and pulled up beside a 
little plantation of lime-trees. In the shadow of 
the trees was a clear, beautiful fountain, with a 
stone seat around it, and here Hermann determined 
to stay while lhs friends proceeded on their visit of 
inquiry. 

"Now, neighbours," said he, "I trust to your 
good judgment, and I know if you use it you will 
be sure to bring me a favourable report. You 
will easily know the maiden from what I have said 
already. She wears a red vest with a black boddice, 
and her rich tresses of hair are bound up round a 
silver bodkin. But I would not have you talk 
much with her, lest she suspect your design : you 
can gain all the needful information from her com- 
panions if you go discreetly, as I know you will, 
about your business." 

"Go," said Hermann, and his friends at once 
proceeded to the village, where the street was 
crowded with cars, waggons, and other vehicles. 
The men attended to the cattle, and the women, 
who had taken up their quarters in barns, were 
busy washing themselves and arranging their dress, 
while the children, forgetful of all the troubles of 
their journey, dabbled in the brook that flowed 
through the village. The respectable spies pressed 
forward through the carriages and people, looking 
on all sides for the figure of the maiden in question ; 
but discovered no glimpse of the reality answering 
to Hermann's description. 

As they walked on, the crowd thickened about 
them, and suddenly they found themselves in the 
midst of a company of quarrelling men whose wives 
stood screaming around them. But they observed 
a worthy-looking old man approaching the scene of 
disturbance, and as soon as he reached the quarrel- 
some parties, their jangling ceased and they 
listened respectfully to his words. " Friends," 
said he, " has not misfortune yet taught you to 
make your condition tolerable by mutual ac- 
commodation in little matters ? It is for the rich 
and fortunate to disturb themselves by disputing 
over every trifle of possession and preference ; but 
we must learn to be brotherly, and so hope for the 
favour of a good Providence." 

As he ceased speaking, the men ceased their 
quarrel, and quietly and orderly proceeded with 
the necessary arrangement of their cattle and 
conveyances for the night. Our good Curate greatly 
admired the demeanour of the old man, and having 
advanced towards him, thus began conversation : 
" Father, I see how valuable is a man of good sense 
and temper in days of adversity. In days of good 
fortune, when the land is broad and fruitful, and 
every man has room to go his own way without 
treading upon others or being trodden upon, then 
indeed all things seem to go well of themselves, and 
the man of good sense is confounded with the rest 
of the people ; but let men be thrown together, in 
days of adversity, and so pent up that one can 
hardly move without being hindered or being a 



hindrance to others, and then how much a man of 
good sense is needed to teach them how to make 
the best of a bad case, and how conspicuously he 
stands forth, like Moses, who led the wandering 
people through the wilderness ! " 

" Truly you do not wrong," replied the venerable 
peace-maker, " in comparing the days we live in 
to the strangest times recorded in history, sacred 
and profane. He who has seen a few days like 
those we have experienced lately, has lived many 
years ; for all ages of history are alike. And as 
surely as the Lord appeared to his people in the 
burning bush, so has he appeared to us in clouds 
and fire." 

Then the Apothecary whispered in the ear of 
the Curate : " Keep the old man in talk, and bring 
about the conversation to the maiden, while I go to 
look about among the people and get a glimpse of 
her." 

CHAPTER VI. 

A glance at the French Revolution. 

The good Curate proceeded to question the old 
man about the adventures of the refugees. " Our 
sorrows are not of yesterday," replied the old man : 
" we have drunk deeply of the bitterness of years 
of confusion and unhappiness. And our lot has 
been harder, because of the fair hopes we had 
cherished. For who can deny that, at the beginning 
of this period, his bosom heaved with exultation, 
when he heard of the equal rights of men, when 
the new sun of equality and liberty seemed rising 
to shine over the whole human race, when the 
bonds that had been held by the hand of sloth and 
selfishness over many lands seemed snapped asun- 
der ! Every one seemed then just beginning to live 
as men ought to live, free and happy. All were 
looking to Paris as the metropolis of a new world, 
and every one seemed to grow greater and stronger 
in spirit, courage, and speech ! 

"And we, as near neighbours to the French 
people, early caught the fire of their enthusiasm. 
And when the war began, an expanse of such 
hopefulness lay before us, that we thought little of 
the inconveniences of warfare. The French were 
our favourites. Their bravery won the men, and 
their liveliness gained the favour of the women. 

"Happy is the hour when the youth leads his 
chosen bride to the dance ; but happier was that 
day when the highest destiny of man seemed so near, 
when every tongue seemed loosed in exultation, 
and youth, man, and grandfather all conspired to 
utter the loftiest sentiments of our nature. 

" But the heavens were soon overclouded. We 
found that a race of men unworthy to achieve the 
promised good were fighting for base, selfish pro- 
fit, and troops were sent out to rob and oppress, 
under the pretence of liberating the people. The 
great ones robbed us in a wholesale way, and the 
meaner ones took up the retail trade of robbery ; 
and when the fortune of war turned on the 
side of the Germans, and the French retreated 
through our country, then first we had to experience 
the full misery of warfare. For the conqueror 
has some mercy, and will use you reasonably, but 
the vanquished and retreating soldier abandons all 
reason and goodness. 

" He sees only death everywhere, and is as if he 
would involve all things in his own ruin. Driven 



"HERMANN AND DOROTHEA. 



43 



to fury by the conduct of the retreating army, our 
men seized their swords and followed the foe with 
merciless vengeance. May I never again see 
human beings so maddened and miserable ! Let no 
man talk of freedom until he is sure he can govern 
himself ! All the evil that law keeps secure in the 
secret corners of humanity, bursts out and over- 
flows the world when men fight for liberty." 

" My good friend," said the Curate, " if you are 
somewhat too severe upon human nature, in such 
circumstances, I can forgive you ; but if you look 
through your recollections, I think you will find 
that times of danger and distress call forth also 
virtues long hidden in the souls of men and women." 

" True," said the old man, smiling; "you remind 
me how, after the burning of a house, the unfor- 
tunate owner will seek for his molten plate among 
the ruins, and though 'tis but a little of his pro- 
perty that he recovers, he will be glad of it. So I 
am willing to turn to some better recollections of 
those unfortunate days, and I confess that our 
dangers and miseries called up many a good 
feeling and produced many a noble action. The 
child then seemed suddenly to become a youth in 
courage, and the old man seemed young again ; old 
enemies joined hands to save their country, and 
the women became men in courage and presence 
of mind. I will give you one instance of the 
bravery of our women. 

" A young maiden, whom I know very well, was 
left alone with a few maid-servants (mere children) 
in a large house, when a band of four or five 
plundering soldiers attacked the house and rushed 
in to seize the damsels. But the high-spirited 
maiden snatched a sabre from the side of one of 
the men, and stretched him bleeding at her feet. 
Yes, and she repelled the whole band, drove them 
from the house, and guarded the door with the 
sword in her hand." 

As the Curate heard the old man say that he knew 
the maiden well, a hope entered his mind in behalf 
of his young friend Hermann, and he was just 
about to ask for more particulars of the brave 
maiden's history when the Apothecary came up, 
and beckoning him aside, began to tell of his good 
success as a spy. 

" I have found the maiden who answers to the 
description. But come yourself and see, and let 
us have the old man with us." But the old man, 
who acted both as judge, counsel and jury, among 
the refugees, was called away to attend to another 
little dispute ; so the Apothecary led the Curate 
along till they came to a gap in the hedge, through 
which they could spy the maiden, who sat on the 
other side of the hedge busied in preparing for 
some of the children the articles of clothing which 
Hermann had committed to her care. They 
noticed the red vest, the black boddice, and the 
thick tresses of hair bound upon the silver bodkin, 
according to the description given by Hermann. 
" It is no wonder," said the sagacious Curate, 
" that she has struck the eye of our young friend ; 
for she will bear the examination of men of cool 
judgment like ourselves. Happy are they to 
whom Mother Nature has given such a form and 
such a face, which recommend themselves to all. 
I can assure you Hermann is right and has found 
a maiden who will cheer his life. Such a perfect 
form and face bespeak a pure soul, and such a 
blooming youth promises a happy old age." 



"But," said the Apothecary sagely, "appearances 
often deceive us. I would not trust the outside ; 
for the proverb is true, f Trust no man till you 
have eaten a peck of salt with him.' Let us ask 
the best of these people about the maiden ; for she 
must have acquaintances among them." 

" I commend your prudence," said the Curate, 
"as we are not choosing for ourselves, and to choose 
for others is a serious matter. We will ask for 
further information, and of none can we ask it 
better than of this old man, who seems to be the 
judge of the company. And here he comes." So 
the Curate again accosted the old man and said, 
" We have just seen a brave maiden who sits 
yonder under an apple-tree preparing clothes for 
the children, and we should like to hear all that 
you can tell us about her. You may be assured 
that we ask for the worthiest motives." The old 
man looked over the hedge at the maiden and 
replied — " You know something of her already, as 
you heard me tell the tale how a maiden repulsed 
the French soldiers, and — this was the maiden ! 

" You may see she is a handsome maiden, and 
she is as good as handsome. How she watched 
over the bed of her aged aunt, who died of sorrow 
on account of the troubles of the country and the 
loss of property ! And how bravely she bore the 
death of her betrothed youth who, in the fire 
of the enthusiasm of the day, went to Paris to fight 
for liberty, and fell." 

So spoke the old man, and the Curate drew out 
his purse and took from it a piece of gold, (for he 
had given away all his silver among the poor 
women and children :) he offered the money to the 
old man, but it was respectfully refused. " We 
have saved a few dollars," said the old man, " and 
we hope to return home before they are spent." 

But the Curate pressed the gold into his hand 
saying, — " Let no one, in these days, refuse to give, 
and no one refuse to take ; for we cannot tell how 
long we shall be able to keep what we possess, and 
you cannot tell how long you must wander about 
before you can return to your home and to the 
fields and gardens that have supported you." 

" Ah ! " said the Apothecary, putting his hand 
into his pocket, " I wish I had gold or even silver 
in my purse, but I have not. But such as I have 
you shall share, and you will take my good will 
for the deed. A copy we wrote at school says, 
' Good tobacco is always welcome to the traveller.' 
So saying, he drew out his leathern tobacco pouch, 
in which he had stuck two or three short pipes. 
He praised the quality of the tobacco, which he 
gave to the old man. 

But the Curate seized his friend by the arm and 
said, " Now let us hasten back to Hermann, who is 
waiting impatiently for the good tidings we have to 
tell him." So they left the old man and returned 
to Hermann, who had stayed for them beside the 
linden-trees, and there he sat, lost in deep medita- 
tion. But the Curate hastened to him, and seizing 
his hand said, " Hail, young man ! Your true eye 
and true heart have made a true choice ! .» She is 
worthy of you. I have much to tell : but, in short, 
all is right; and now let us hasten back to the 
town." 

But Hermann stood and gave no sign of joy, but 
sighed and said, " We shall perhaps return home 
ashamed of ourselves after all ; for, while I have 
waited for you here, some sad doubts and suspicions 



44 



GOETHE. 



have entered my mind. Do we think that the 
maiden will follow us, just because she is poor and 
we are comfortable ? She seems active and con- 
tented, and thus all the world belongs to her, and 
she can do without our help. And can such a 
maiden have grown up without winning some 
heart ? Has not her hand been already clasped 
with a faithful promise ? Let us not be too hasty 
and go home only to be ashamed of ourselves after- 
wards." Then the Curate would have spoken to 
comfort his young friend ; but, unfortunately, just 
then the Apothecary began to talk : — 

"Now, in the ancient and respectable way of 
conducting these matters," said he, " we had none 
of these perplexities. When one had looked out a 
maiden for his son, he would send a friend of the 
family to take dinner with the father of the maiden 
on a Sunday. And then, after dinner, the friend 
of the family would wheel the conversation about 
till he had brought it upon the * excellent family ' 
' worthy son ' and so forth ; and the good people 
soon came to an understanding. And even if a 
refusal was given, it was no hard matter to take it 
by proxy ; but if the match was made, of course 
the friend of the family was one at the wedding- 
dinner, and was always well remembered by the 
happy pair for his good services. But now this, 
like many other good old customs, is gone quite 
out of fashion, and every one must win a wife for 
himself, or take a refusal at first hand." Hermann, 
lost in meditation, had heard nothing that the 
talkative Apothecary had said. " But," said he, 
with great resolution, " I will know my fate 
before I go home ! You shall drive the phaeton 
home while I go and see this maiden whom I can 
never forget. If she says ' No,' I am lost : but 
courage ! let my father know that I think her well 
worth looking after, and that I shall return home 
by the foot-path that leads by the great pear-tree." 



CHAPTER VII. 

The meeting of Hermann and Dorothea at the Fountain. 

As the traveller who gazes upon the setting sun 
turns away with dazzled eyes, and, after the orb is 
beneath the horizon, still sees the glorious image 
shining through the bushes, on the sides of the 
rocks, and in the water, yea, wherever he turns 
his eyes ; so the lovely image of the maiden hovered 
before Hermann. But when his friends had de- 
parted, he aroused himself from his reverie, and 
hastened along the path leading from the spring 
under the lime-trees, to the village where the 
refugees were staying. He had not proceeded 
far, when, to his amazement, he beheld the noble 
form of the maiden advancing towards him — he 
gazed — it was no false vision, but herself ! She 
came along with lively energetic steps, towards 
the fountain, bearing a large pitcher and a smaller 
one in each hand : Hermann hastened with joy to 
meet her, and, at the first glance, her fine open 
face gave him strength and courage, and he 
spoke : — " So I find you again, good maiden, busy 
to help and refresh others ; but why should you 
come so far away from the village for water, 
since there is a fine brook there % yet this is 
sweeter water, and I dare say, you are fetching it 
for the poor woman whose life you have saved." 

Then the maiden spoke, with a happy and 



friendly tone, to the youth : — " I am well rewarded 
already for my trouble in coming to the spring, 
for it does the heart good to see the face of a 
friend. Come to the village, and see those who 
have been refreshed by your kindness, and receive 
their hearty thanks. But I must go and fill my 
pitchers at the clear sweet fountain under the 
lime-trees ; for the thoughtless people have allowed 
the cattle to soil the spring from which the stream 
runs through the village : each only thinks of 
himself, and the present need, but forgets all who 
must follow." 

So speaking, she came to the fountain, and 
Hermann came with her, and both descended the 
steps and seated themselves on the low wall of 
stone around the water. Then she stooped over 
to dip one pitcher in the fountain, and Hermann 
took the other pitcher, and stooped to fill it, and 
their faces met, mirrored in the midst of the blue 
sky in the water. " Let me drink, now," said 
Hermann cheerfully, and Dorothea reached to him 
her pitcher ; then they rested awhile seated on 
the wall, and the maiden said : " But how is it 
that I find you here alone, without your carriage, 
and so far from the place where first I met you ? " 

Then Hermann looked thoughtfully down awhile, 
but looked up again at the maiden, and received 
comfort and assurance from her clear calm eye ; yet 
he felt that he could not speak to her of love, for her 
countenance was very calm and serious, and seemed 
to command him to converse with good taste. But 
thus he began : " Let me tell you, then, the truth, my 
child ; it was for your sake that I came here ; you 
shall know all the reason and purpose of my 
coming. I five very comfortably with my loving 
parents ; I am their only son, and have much of 
the business of my father's estate to see after : my 
mother has the farm-house and all its cares upon 
her bands, and a good active housewife she has 
always been, but sadly plagued with the careless- 
ness and the unfaithfulness of her maid-servants. 
She has long desired to have a maiden who will 
help her, not only with the hand, but heartily, 
even in the place of her daughter, who, alas ! died 
in early life. Now, as I saw you to-day, and 
observed your health and activity, and your readi- 
ness to help all who needed help, I thought at 
once, ' this is the maiden ! ' and now I come to 
tell you my parents' wish and mine — forgive me if 
I have said wrong." 

" Don't be afraid of offending me," said the 
maiden, but go on, and tell the rest : " but indeed I 
already know what you would say : you would 
engage me as maid for your mother, to keep the 
house in order, and you suppose that I am active 
and obliging enough for the place. Your offer is 
short, and my answer shall be as short : — Yes, I 
will go with you, and so follow the steps of my fate. 
My duty is done in the village, for I have got the 
poor woman safely now among her friends ; they 
think, indeed, of returning to their homes in a few 
days ; but I am not deceived by such hopes, for 
now the bands of the world are dissolved, and who 
will knit them again ? If I can be useful in your 
house I shall be glad, for I would gladly avoid 
wandering about in these days : but come, I will 
go home with you as soon as I have carried the 
water to the poor people in the village. Come, 
you shall see them, and receive me from their 
hands." 



HERMANN AND DOROTHEA. 



45 



Hermann heard with delight the resolution of 
the willing maiden, and considered whether he 
should now confess all the truth ; but it seemed 
better to him to leave further disclosure of his mean- 
ing to another opportunity ; and beside, he noticed 
now the golden ring upon the maiden's finger. 

" Let us return to the village," she said ; " for 
the maiden is always blamed who stays long at the 
spring ; and yet, I know not why, but it is very 
pleasant to stay awhile and talk beside the running 
water." So they both arose and, as they departed, 
looked back together upon the face of the spring, 
and sweet thoughts were stirred in their souls. 

She took up the pitchers, and ascended the 
steps ; but Hermann followed, and begged that he 
might be allowed to share the burden. " No, 
leave them so," said she ; "they balance each 
other, and are easy to carry ; and my future 
master must not begin by being my servant. 
Now do not look so at me as if you pitied my hard 
case, for we maidens learn to serve from our early 
days : we must serve our brothers and our parents, 
and the life of an active little maiden must be a 
perpetual going and coming, preparing, and making 
for others ; and it is a good thing for her, when 
she is so habituated to such a life, that for her the 
hours of the night are even as the hours of the 
day, that her work never seems too "minute and 
tedious, nor her needle too fine. All such virtues 
she will need as a mother, when the suckling 
awakens her in the night, and demands nourish- 
ment when she is weary. Twenty men could not 
bear these cares and troubles, and they ought not 
to be annoyed with them ; only, they should be 
thankful to those who bear them." 

So she spoke ; and now, with her silent com- 
panion, she passed through the garden a,nd arrived 
at the bam, where lay the poor woman whom she 
had rescued and helped on her journey. Her- 
mann and Dorothea entered the barn, and at the 
same time the old man entered who acted as 
judge among the people, leading a child by each 
hand, for the two children of the poor woman had 
lost themselves in the crowd, and he had sought 
and found them. They sprang forward and kissed 
their mother, then turned to Dorothea, and begged 
for bread and apples, but chiefly for water. The 
children and their poor mother, and the good old 
man, all drank out of the pitcher which Dorothea 
held to their lips, and all praised the sweet cool 
water of the fountain under the lime-trees. And 
then spoke the good maiden, with a serious coun- 
tenance : "My friends, this is the last time that I 
shall bring you water, and hold the pitcher to 
your thirsty lips ; but hereafter, when you are 
refreshed in the heat of the day with cool water 
from the spring, remember me, and the ser- 
vice I have rendered you, from love and not 
from relationship, and whatever kindness you 
have shown me I will remember throughout 
my future life. I am unwilling to leave you, 
but in these days we are more a burden than a 
help to each other, and soon we shall have to 
scatter ourselves abroad in various parts of the 
country. You see this young man, our good bene- 
factor, who brought us the clothing and the food, 
and he has now engaged me to serve in the house 
of his excellent parents, and I am ready for work, 
for I would not live to be waited upon : so fare 
you well, my good friend, and may you yet live to 



have joy in the child that now looks up so health- 
fully in your face, and when you press him to your 
bosom in comfortable raiment, think of this kind 
youth, who gave us the clothing and now takes me 
to a sheltering home, where I may be useful and 
happy. And you, excellent man," she continued, 
turning to the old judge, " I thank you, for you 
have been like a father to me all through our sad 
journey." 

Then Dorothea kneeled down and kissed the 
poor woman upon the bed of straw, and received 
a whispered blessing : and the old judge turned 
and said to Hermann, " You have made a speedy 
choice, but you have done well ; for as long as 
such a maiden remains in your family, you will 
never miss a sister ; nor will your mother feel 
the want of a daughter." 

Meanwhile, several of the people entered the 
barn, to tell of better lodgings for the poor con- 
valescent : they heard Dorothea's resolution, and 
uttered many kind blessings on Hermann, and one 
whispered to another, " If the master should be- 
come a husband it will be happy for her ! " 

Then Hermann took the maiden by the hand, 
and said, " Let us be going, for the day grows late, 
and our town is some miles away." The women 
embraced Dorothea, and the children held fast to 
her skirts, screaming aloud, and would not let her 
go, until they were deluded by the promise of a 
speedy return, and plenty of gingerbread. Then 
Hermann and Dorothea proceeded on their way. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The walk to the Golden Lion. 

They walked together, with their faces towards 
the setting sun, which was surrounded with clouds 
threatening a storm, and here and there, from the 
dark veil of vapours, cast out a gleam over the 
fields of corn. " I hope," said Hermann, " that 
these clouds will not bring bad weather to-morrow, 
for the harvest is ready." And as they walked 
through the tall corn, that almost reached the 
shoulders of the noble pair, the maiden began : 
" Good friend, to whom I owe the prospect of a 
good home, now so many are wandering about 
homeless, let me hear something of my future 
master and mistress, whom I am heartily dis- 
posed to serve ; for we can serve those most 
happily whose minds we best understand. So tell 
me now, how shall I please your father and 
mother ? " 

And thus Hermann replied : — 

" How glad am I that you have asked of me a 
description of my parents, whom you will have to 
serve, for of this I wished to talk with you. I 
have, myself, in vain endeavoured to please my 
father, though I have surely attended to his fields 
and his vineyard, even as if I laboured for myself. 
But my mother is well satisfied with me, and 
esteems what I do, and if you only take care of 
the house as if it were your own, you will be sure 
to please her ; but it is not just so with my father, 
who is rather too fond of idle show : my good 
maiden, do not take me to be a cold and ungrate- 
ful son, because I say this of my father, for I 
assure you, never before did my lips breathe a 
word of this sort, but I feel that you must be 
worthy of my confidence. As I have said, my 



4G 



GOETHE. 



father loves a little ornament dearly, and demands 
outward signs of affection and respect ; and he 
would perhaps be better pleased with an indiffe- 
rent servant, who would use these methods, than 
with a good trusty person who neglected them." 

" Then," said Dorothea, with great cheerfulness, 
quickening her pace, " then I hope I shall be 
able to please both father and mother ; for your 
mother's mind is indeed exactly my own, and I 
have not been unaccustomed to the ornamental 
parts of domestic life, as the French were our 
close neighbours, and I learned some of their 
customs in my childhood, and these will suit your 
father ; but tell me this, how shall I please 
you ? " 

As she put this touching question, they stepped 
into the shadow of the great pear-tree. And now 
the full moon was shining, and the last glimmer of 
sunlight had departed, and before the travellers lay 
masses of light, as clear as day, and deep shadows 
of night. And under the noble tree, where he had 
sat and wept in the morning, Hermann heard this 
question. They sat down together on the bank, 
and Hermann grasped the hand of the maiden, 
and said : " Let your own heart tell you how to 
please one, and follow its biddings in all things." 
He could not say another word, though the hour 
was so favourable : he feared to hear the " No," 
and again he felt the golden ring upon the finger. 
So they sat together in silence awhile, till Doro- 
thea began : — u How brightly the moon is shining, 
almost as clear as day ! yonder, hi the house over 
the trees, I can almost count the window-panes in 
the roof." 

" That is our house," said Hermann, " and the 
window you see belongs to my chamber, which, 
perhaps, now will be yours, for we shall make 
some alteration in the house : these corn-fields 
are ours, and to-morrow harvest begins ; here, in 
the shadow of this tree, we shall rest and refresh 
ourselves. But let us go down through the vine- 
yard, for see ! the clouds gather in the sky, and 
threaten to bury the moon." 

Then they arose, and passed through the bright- 
shining corn-field, and entered the dark shade of 
the vineyard. He led her down the steep path, 
where the moonlight only glimmered here and 
there, and on the uncertain way, she rested her 
hand upon his shoulder for support. But in 
going down the slippery steps into the garden, 
her footing slipped, and she must have fallen, had 
not Hermann spread out his arms as she fell upon 
his shoulder. 

She concealed the pain which the slip of her 
ancle had caused, and said, with a laugh, " That 
betokens unpleasantness, as some people say, 
when you slip your footing on entering a house. 
Let us wait a moment, until I am better, lest your 
parents should laugh at you for leading home a 
limping maiden." 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Conclusion. 

Hermann's good mother for the third time re- 
entered the back-parlour, where the neighbours 
sat chatting ; for she began to be impatient, and 
talked of the coming storm, the hiding of the 
moon in the clouds, and the dangers of the night, 
to which her son was exposed ; then she blamed 



the friends, who had left the youth to himself in 
the adventure. 

" But," said the father, " I pray you, now, 
make not the matter worse than it is ; for you see 
we are anxiously enough waiting for the end 
of it." 

Then the? neighbourly Apothecary began, with 
great tranquillity, to speak : — 

" In such anxious seasons, I am always very 
thankful to my father, who destroyed the very 
root of all impatience in me, when a child, and 
taught me to wait for everything, like one of the 
seven sages." "How did he do that ?" asked the 
Curate. 

" I will tell you the plan he adopted," said the 
Apothecary, u and every one may try it upon him- 
self. One Sunday afternoon, I stood looking out 
of the window for the carriage, which was to take 
us out as far as the spring under the lime-trees : it 
did not come up at the time. I ran about like a 
weasel, here and there, went up stairs and down, 
from the window to the door and back again ; my 
hands pricked with impatience ; I scratched the 
table ; I pranced about wildly, and was very near 
crying lustily. My father, good man, quietly 
observed all this, until I began to act rather too 
foolishly in my fit of impatience ; then he took 
me gently by the arm, led me to the window, and 
spoke thus to me, solemnly : « Do you see that the 
joiner's shop, over the road, is shut up to-day ? to- 
morrow morning early, it will be opened again, 
and you will hear the hammer and the saw. But, 
remember this, my boy, that the morning will come 
that the master will call his workmen to make you 
a coffin, and they will bring the wooden bed over 
here, in which both patient and impatient boys 
must sleep at last, with a board nailed fast over 
them.' All this I saw before me, with my mind's 
eye — saw the boards nailed together, and covered 
with the black cloth, and so I sat still, and patient- 
ly waited for the coach : and, from that time to 
this, when people are running about in hot impa- 
tience, for this or for that, I sit still and think of 
the black coffin." 

Then the Curate laughed at the Apothecary, and 
said : " The affecting image of death does not stand 
as a terror before the wise man, nor as the closing 
scene of existence before the pious man ; but impels 
the one back into life and activity, and gives the other 
a comfortable prospect of escape from adversity : 
to both, then, death becomes life ! Now I blame 
your father, who showed to you, when an active 
lively boy, nothing but mere death in death. 
Show to the youth the excellence of a ripe, good 
old age, and show the aged man the bloom of 
youth, that each may rejoice in the other, and let 
the circle of life leading to fife be completed ! " 

But, as the Curate spoke, the cloor of the back- 
parlour was opened : the noble pair appeared in 
the doorway, and the parents and their friends 
looked upon them with amazement, for the door- 
way seemed too small to admit the two goodly 
figures. But Hermann handed in the maiden, and 
placed her before his father. 

"Here is the maiden whom you desire," said he. 
" Dear father, receive her ; and mother, you will 
find her ready to help you in every way." 

Then he hastily called aside the good Curate, 
and whispered with him : — 

« My good sir, you must now try your skill to 



"HERMANN AND DOROTHEA." 



47 



rescue me from a difficulty, by untying the knot 
to loosen which I am afraid : for I have not 
brought the maiden as my betrothed, but have 
only engaged her as a maid-servant ; and I fear, 
as soon as she discovers our plot, she will leave 
the house in displeasure. But let it be soon 
decided, for I cannot longer endure my doubts ; 
put all your wisdom, my good sir, to the proof, in 
my behalf." 

Then the Curate turned to the company, but 
alas ! already the words of the father had troubled 
the mind of the maiden, though he spoke in good 
humour, and had no ill meaning. " Well, my 
child," said he, " I am not displeased with my son 
Hermann's taste this time ; for I see that he 
follows his father, who always led the fairest to 
the dance, and brought the fairest damsel in the 
town home for a wife. I am pleased, for one may 
tell by the bride a man chooses whether he feels 
any worth in himself." 

Hermann just heard the words, and trembled to 
see their effect. 

The excellent maiden seemed wounded and hurt 
deeply by the sportive words of the father. She 
stood, with a blush diffused over her cheeks and 
her bosom ; but, collecting herself, she thus made 
answer to the host of the Golden Lion. 

" Truly, your son did not prepare me for such a 
reception ; he described to me his father as a 
respectable man, and I have no doubt that I stand 
before a very good and sensible man in some 
respects : but it seems you have not enough pity 
for the poor, else you would not so cruelly 
remind me, the moment that I have crossed your 
threshold, how far I am removed by my destiny 
beneath your family. I come to you poor, with 
this small bundle ; but is it noble to drive me at 
once from the house, where I came ready to serve 
and be useful, with untimely jests ? " 

Anxiously Hermann beckoned to the Curate 
that he should now take part in the scene, and 
unriddle the unpleasant mystery. 

The good man stepped forward, and quietly 
looked upon the earnest countenance of the 
maiden ; but he determined not to solve the 
whole mystery in a moment, but to allow the 
excellent girl to display something more of her 
character ; so he said : " My good maiden, I 
should imagine that you have not fully considered 
all the inconveniences that must attend your 
entrance upon a condition of servitude, to which, 
probably, you have not been accustomed. 

w The word i yes,' or ' no,' in this business, 
determines the destiny of the year, and many 
unpleasant things may follow the resolution of a 
moment. 'Tis not the hard labour that is to be 
dreaded, for all activity is accompanied with some 
enjoyment ; but to bear the ill-humour of a master 
who himself does not always know what he wants ; 
the hot temper of an over-anxious, bustling, and 
never-satisfied housewife, and, in the bargain, all 
the freaks of spoilt children. All this, my good 
maiden, must be considered, and I imagine that 
you are hardly prepared for it, since you seem so 
much disturbed by &joke." 

The noble maiden heard and felt the charge, 
and her bosom rose with suppressed feeling, then 
relieved itself with a sigh, and a few suddenly- 
gushing tears, and she spoke : — " Oh, little thinks 
the man, however well-meaning he may be, how 



little cold words of counsel can do for us in our 
grief, — how unable they are to remove the burden 
our destiny has put upon us ! You are fortunate 
and happy ; how can a jest hurt you ? but the 
wounded man feels the lightest touch near the 
wound. I cannot stay in this house : what would 
it help me to hide the whole truth, and so conceal 
the cause of my sorrow in silence, perhaps long 
years ? I will return to the poor people whom I 
just now left, in hope of a better destiny for 
myself ; and therefore, I will confess the reason of 
my sorrow, which else might have remained long 
secret in my heart. Yes, the jest of this good 
man has hurt me, not because I am a proud 
maiden, but because, I confess it, I had indulged 
a love for this excellent youth, who this morning 
appeared as our deliverer ; and when he had left 
us, I could not help thinking how happy would be 
the maiden who should deserve such a husband : 
and he seemed as good as an angel, when he met 
me at the fountain, and engaged me for his 
mother ; and, I confess it, as I walked home with 
him, I thought it even possible that I might make 
myself so useful and helpful to his family, that at 
last I might win him. But now I see the danger 
into which such thoughts would lead me, — to stay 
in the house, and cherish such feelings long 
years, and at last see him bring home his bride, 
— that would be sad ! But I am warned of the 
peril, and now I have confessed the truth, that 
you may know I am not offended at a joke ; 
and I stand here ashamed and confused before you 
for what I have said. But now, nothing shall 
keep me in the house where I have made this 
confession ! not the dark night that has gathered 
around, not the rolling thunder (I hear it), nor 
the heavy rain shall detain me here ! I go again 
to await the call of destiny. Farewell ! I can stay 
no longer here ! " 

She hastened with her bundle under her arm, 
to the door ; but the mother ran and clasped her 
fast by the arms, and exclaimed : " What means 
all this ? you shall not go out, indeed ! Are you not 
my Hermann's betrothed bride already ? " 

The father stared in ill-humour upon the weep- 
ing women, and said : 

" This is all my reward for all my patience ! that 
the unpleasantest thing in the world happens just 
at bed-time ! Nothing do I dislike more than to 
hear women cry, when they make such a stir and 
confusion of a matter that a trifle of good sense 
would make smooth in a twinkling ! But I am 
quite tired of it ; so settle it among yourselves, for 
I shall go to bed ! " And he turned aside hastily 
to go up to his chamber, where stood his bed, 
and where he was accustomed to sleep ; but his 
son held him back, and entreated him : " Father, 
be not angry with the maiden, for the whole of 
the fault is mine ; but speak at once now, our 
good Curate, for I put the whole matter in your 
hand, and now bring us all to a conclusion. 
I shall not esteem you so highly as I have 
done, if you do not help us with your wisdom 
here ! " 

Then the Curate laughed, and said : " And 
whose wisdom, I pray you, extorted this good 
confession % Is not your care and doubt now 
already turned to joy ? What need have you of 
my help ? Speak yourself, good Hermann ! " 

Then the good youth stepped forth, and tenderly 



48 



MINOR POETS. 



spoke to the maiden : — " Never care for the grief 
you have felt for a while, nor repent of these 
tears ; your confession has assured me of hap- 
piness, and now I will make mine. Dorothea, I 
came not to the spring under the lime-trees to 
engage you for my mother, but to win your love ; 
but I was afraid, for your eyes spoke only of 
friendship ; so forgive my conduct when I brought 
you home in error : but now, you have made me 
happy ! be happy now yourself ! " 

Then the maiden gazed upon the youth with 
deep and tender emotion, nor did she refuse, when 
he embraced and kissed her. 

Meanwhile, the Curate had explained all to the 
rest of the party, and now Dorothea came and 
took the hand of the father, and kissed it, and 
said : " You will forgive me if I have brought 
some trouble with me ; you will forgive the tears 
of grief, and now the tears of joy, and this first 
trouble I have caused shall be the last ! " Then the 
father embraced her, and strove to hide his tears, 
and the mother clasped her hand, and kissed her, 
and wept again. 

Immediately the Curate, with some difficulty, 
drew the golden ring from the plump finger of the 
host of the Golden Lion, and said : "All things are 
ripe and ready; then why should not the pair be 
betrothed to-night ? Here I betroth you, and pray 
for bliss on your future lives." 

But, as he placed the golden ring on the maiden's 
finger, he exclaimed, "What! another! betrothed 
already ! " for he beheld the ring upon her hand, 
even the same which Hermann had seen at the 
spring under the lime-trees. 

But Dorothea answered : " Allow me one mo- 
ment to devote to kind recollection of the good 
youth who gave me this ring, when he left his 
home, to which he never returned ! 

" When the love of liberty led him away to 
Paris, (where he only found a prison and death,) 
he said to me, as he departed : ' Farewell ! I must 
go, for all things are moving : laws and posses- 
sions are changing ; friend severs from friend — 
love from love ! I leave you here, and when and 
where I shall see you again who can tell ? 'Tis 
true, indeed, we are but strangers and pilgrims 
upon earth : more so now than ever ! The world 
seems going back into night and chaos, to begin a 
new creation. If ever we meet again, we shall be 
new creatures, exalted over the ruins of the old 
world : but if I never see through these days of 
peril, then remember me : but remember to live 
and be happy, and when you gain another home, 
be thankful and love your benefactor. Live and 
use life like other possessions, for all is uncertain ! ' 
So he spoke, and departed, and I have never seen 
him since. I thought of his warning voice when I 
lost all my possessions, and I think upon his words 
now, as I am entering upon new fortune. Forgive 
me, dear friend, if I tremble now, as I hang upon 
your arm : so the new-landed sailor feels the 
ground heaving like the sea under his feet." 

So she spoke, and placed the rings together 
upon her finger ; but her betrothed bridegroom 
said, with noble and manly emotion :— 

" The firmer be our union, Dorothea, in these 
days of instability ! We will hold fast to each 
other, and to all that we have, and be firm always ! 
for the man who wavers in wavering times makes 
the evil worse ; but he who stands firm makes the 



world firm about him ! It is not for true Germans 
to yield to the commotion, and waver hither and 
thither ; but like good resolute people, to contend 
for God and law, for parents, for wives, and for 
children ! Thou art mine, Dorothea, and all that is 
mine seems more my own now than ever, and I will 
keep it, not with care and anxiety, but with strength 
and courage ! So let the Germans say, 'this is ours," 
and boldly assert their right ! and, were all of my 
mind now, we would present a firm breast against 
the foe, and soon should the land enjoy peace ! " 



CHAPTER VII. 

MINOR POETS. 

We have not a fair view of the German Par- 
nassus if we look only on its peaks ; a throng of 
minor poets surrounds its base. 

Of these we shall give a few specimens between 
our notices of Goethe and Schiller, not only for the 
sake of variety and contrast, but because they are 
fair representatives of many other poetical writers 
whom we cannot particularly notice. 

The eighteenth century was especially rich in 
the productions of many poets of humble genius, 
excited to intellectual activity by the impulses of a 
growing literature. In many of these minor poets 
we find good and amiable qualities — the love of 
nature, of home and Fatherland — true pious feel- 
ing and kindly humanity, sometimes tinctured with 
weak sentimentality ; but seldom anything that 
can be called original or powerful. No mighty 
impulse seems to have moved the greater number 
of these lowly poets to utter themselves in rhyme: 
their stock of sentiments and imagery may easily 
be counted, and often bears the impression of 
common-place, general property. If we allow such 
writers to carry the title of poet, it must be " with 
a difference : " we must not be thinking of such 
minds as Shakspere, Milton, Chaucer, Dante, and 
Cervantes ; nor even of such as Thomson, Cowper, 
and Burns. Yet some pleasant verses may be 
selected from these minor canons in the cathedral 
of poetry. Let us introduce a few extracts and 
notices, with all due solemnity, by giving some 
passages from the biography of one of these minor 
bards. 

NEUFFER. 
Delicate flowers require for their growth a 
still atmosphere : oaks and pines flourish through 
thousands of storms. Many men — quiet school- 
masters in little German towns and villages, or 
country parsons, who could not exhaust their 
inventive faculties in the composition of their 
sermons ; or official persons, whose duties are pro- 
portioned to their leisure, as Falstaff 's bread was 
to his sack — many men of this order in Germany, 
have turned poets, who would never have paid the 
most distant compliment to the Muses, had they 
been occupied as linendrapers in London, The 
man who dwells in the midst of bustling crowds is 
hardly tempted to imagine that a few smooth 
verses from his pen can produce an impression 
upon the striving multitudes around him. But 
the retired German poet lives in such a little 
world, that he imagines he can fill it with his 



NEUFFER. 



49 



voice. He arranges a few common-place senti- 
ments in verses tolerably smooth, reads them over 
to his wife, his wife's sister, and a few friends, 
sends them to a publisher, and begins to dream of 
immortality. 

Thus the little German Anacreon lived at Hal- 
berstadt, and felt that he had done a good day's 
work, when his muse had brought forth some nine 
or ten stanzas about Cupid. And he afterwards 
found a biographer reverential enough to record, 
with all due solemnity, how the happy little bard of 
Halberstadt — snug little cricket! — consumed the 
hours of the day : at what time he awoke in the 
morning, how he read in bed, and wrote down his 
precious little lyrics early in the morning. 

There is something amusing in the solemn 
respect which their friendly biographers have 
paid to the harmless little poets of Germany in 
the eighteenth century. 

Neuffer, our present subject, though his name 
is now unheard, was a poet of sufficient fame in 
his day, to be solicited by his publishers to prefix 
a short autobiography to his collected poems. " I 
remember," says he, " that the love of poetry was 
awakened in me at a very early period. When I 
was oaly eight years old, the psalm-book was my 
favourite companion : then Hubner's Rhyming 
Dictionary fell into my hands, and I endeavoured 
to make some verses : my success was such that 
many venerable dames wondered how little Lud- 
wig could make such pious hymns, and it was at 
once determined that I should be a parson." 

As an amusing specimen of the quiet gravity 
with which some autobiographers can write ac- 
counts of lives in which we find nothing remark- 
able, we may give an extract from Neuffer's 
memoirs. 

" My parents belonged to the sect of pietists. I 
frequently attended their meetings in my boyhood, 
and listened with warm interest to their prayers 
and expositions of the Scripture. A pious and 
quiet disposition was thus planted within me, 
prone to solitude and devout feelings. But I 
almost became a visionary, for at times I imagined 
myself in company with supernatural beings, and 
heard voices from another world. I had dreams 
too, of which my mother made something wonder- 
ful and prophetic ; but my father called all this 
fantasy, and drove me to my secular learning. 

"In the autumn of 1786, I finished my career 
at the Gymnasium, and was received into the 
Theological Seminary at Tubingen. The monastic 
severity of this institution was not very agreeable 
to me, for it restricted my movements, so that for 
several weeks together, I renounced all thoughts 
of liberty, and buried myself in my cell. In these 
circumstances I followed my own course of studies, 
and especially devoted myself to the old classics, 
so that I finished, during my stay at Tubingen, a 
metrical version of the iEneid, of which some 
specimens were presented to the public in Wie- 
land's < Mercury.' In 1788 I received the degree 
of Doctor of Philosophy, and, in autumn 1791, 1 
left the university. I was not quite comfortable 
when I thought of the theological examination I 
must now undergo at Stuttgart, for I was conscious 
that theological studies had too seldom occupied 
my attention. However, I had some months for 
preparation, and at last the trial was passed with 
some credit, which I attributed to good fortune 



The consequence was, that I was retained as as- 
sistant clergyman at Stuttgart, and was afterwards 
appointed as preacher at the Orphan House. I 
had long entertained a dread of such an office, as 
I distrusted my abilities for public speaking ; but 
I applied myself to my task, and had the pleasure, 
in a short time, of finding my church too small 
for my hearers. I attribute my popularity as a 
preacher to my familiarity with the classics, which 
gave to my declamation a more flowery style than 
was then common in the pulpit. 

Some years afterwards, I received a call to the 
office of preacher in a considerable town out of the 
country ; but the President of the Consistory 
advised me not to accept it, and promised me, 
instead of it, a good situation at home. Some 
time after this, when I reminded him of his pro- 
mise, he would know nothing of it. After my re- 
turn from Tubingen, I formed an acquaintanceship 
never to be forgotten, with Daniel Schubart, who 
had just been released from his imprisonment. 
He received me with true paternal affection into 
his house, where I enjoyed many pleasant hours, 
assisting him in the composition of his u German 
Chronicle :" but he died before we had completed 
it, and my hand closed his eyes. About this time, 
a more tender attachment seized my affections : 
my frequent visits to Staudlin (who had been my 
fellow-student), introduced me to the company of 
his amiable sisters. Rosetta, the middle one of 
these sisters, had long been the object of my quiet 
devotion ; nor had she been insensible of my 
attentions ; so that at last, our mutual affection 
found words and explained itself. Her brother 
advised me again to devote myself to my classical 
studies, and to seek the patronage of Heyne at Got- 
tingen. In this course I found great delight, and 
had every promise of success and happiness ; but 
my joy was soon overcast. The good maiden, whose 
love had inspired all my studies with fresh zeal 
and made me unspeakably happy, began to sicken: 
for a year and a half her health decayed, and on 
the twenty-fifth of April, 1795, she died, in the 
fairest bloom of her youth. The wounds which 
this long illness and death made in my heart I will 
pass over in silence : I was indisposed to pursue 
my plan of study, and gave up the object of my 
ambition, an academical professorship. Rosetta 
was a maiden of a most delicate mind and person ; 
she seemed to be formed from a finer material than 
ordinary mortals : her soul was remarkable for its 
fine conscience, love of truth, strict watch over 
itself, and benevolence to others ; she had an 
ardent love of poetry, and this prepared for me 
the way to her heart. In my " Erato " I have 
collected the poems which I dedicated to her 
in various situations during our union ; and, in 
my miscellaneous poems, others may be found 
addressed to her, under the name of c Ida.' 

" In the autumn of 1803 I married Wilhelmine 
Louise, the daughter of the Orphan House Gover- 
nor, Osterle, and left my native town to take the 
charge of a deaconship in a little country town 
called Weilheim an der Tech. I found it situated 
in the midst of remarkably fine and beautiful 
scenery. Here I should have had a pleasant life, 
if there had not been old-standing quarrels among 
the leading families of the place ; but, though my 
wife and I determined to remain neutral, we could 
not avoid the unpleasant consequences of these 



50 



NEUBECK. 



disputes : my health suffered too, in this situation, 
from fever and catarrh, occasioned, I believe, from 
exposure to the cold with too light clothing ; for 
the climate is more severe here than at Stuttgart. 
I received a new appointment to Zell-unter-Eichel- 
berg, which is but a very short distance from 
Weilheim. Here there was no want of duties to 
perform, as, in addition to the mother-church, there 
were three daughter-churches to be supplied ; yet 
I found leisure for literary occupations and enjoy- 
ments, and lived here in quite a pastoral and 
poetical style. Beautiful scenery, domestic happi- 
ness, the respect of good friends, and, above all, 
the love and unbounded confidence of my congre- 
gation, made my eleven years' stay at Zell dear to 
me and not to be forgotten : but, as age came on, 
I longed once more to reside in a town, and this 
wish was to be fulfilled. In the summer of 1819 
I was appointed as preacher and school-inspector 
at Ulm, with the charge to establish and over- 
rule a school for young maidens. Though I 
had desired such an appointment, yet my de- 
parture from Zell was painful ; for now I first 
understood how well my congregation loved me. 
Our separation was very affecting ; the whole 
village assembled around my house, and I had to 
push my way to the carriage through a crowd of 
men, women and children, weeping and holding 
out their hands to bid good-bye. The magistrate, 
on horseback, accompanied me, and had a fare- 
well-dinner prepared in the neighbouring town, 
where more tears were shed than at many fune- 
rals. In the churchyard at Zell He two dear 
little daughters, and at Weilheim I have left, in 
the shadow of the church, my twin-boys : four 
daughters went with me to Ulm, of whom the 
eldest is now married to the celebrated musician, 
Kocher. " 

We have given this short extract from Neuffer's 
autobiography, not for any special interest which it 
has, but as a fair specimen of a hundred German 
biographies of quiet little literary men, who have 
written poetry as an amusement for abundance of 
leisure. From such quiet minds and quiet lives no 
very stirring poetry can be expected to result, and 
the strains of such humble writers have but little 
chance of winning public attention after the vigorous 
poems of Scott and Byron. Yet we could not present 
a fair view of German poetry without giving some 
specimens from a class of writers occupying a 
large space in the German " Corpus Poetarum." 

Of the following extract from Neuffer's poems we 
have nothing to say, save that it is as favourable a 
specimen as we could select. 

THE ABSENT WIFE. 

I think of thee, when flies the gloom 
Of night hefore the dawning gray, 

And in my lonely, quiet room, 
I kneel in morning light, to pray : 

While my devotion's early flame 

Ascends to heaven, from whence it came, 
I think of thee, though far away. 

I think of thee, with still delight, 
When, gazing on thy portrait here, 

I give it, with creative might, 

A life and soul — thy smile grows clear, 

The eyes look meaningly and hright ; 



Again I have thee in my sight — 

My heart heats high — I feel thee near. 

I think of thee when round me throng 
Our children dear, a gladsome band, 

I see thy form their forms among, 
And when they earnestly demand : 

" When will our mother come again?'" 

I soften my awakening pain 

With hope full soon to grasp thy hand. 

I think of thee where'er I gaze — 

The traces of thy hand I view ; 
I mark thy calm domestic ways ; 

In garden and in household too 
I see the tokens of thy skill, 
And everything around betrays 
Thy spirit hovering o'er us still. 

I think of thee in meadows green, 
And on the mountain's summit too, 

Along the brook of silver sheen, 

'Mid all we have together seen : 

In every place where we have been 

Thy lovely vision comes between 

Mine eyes and everything they view ! 

I think of thee when in the west 

The sun sinks down, and day's eye closes, 

When darkness has our valleys dress'd, 
And all the earth in shade reposes, 

Then, when my head lies down to rest 

Thy image o'er my pillow beams — 

I see thee all night in my dreams ! 

NEUBECK. 

Valerius William Neubeck was born at Arn- 
stadt, in Thuringia, in January, 1765. He went 
to study medicine at Gb'ttingen in the year 1785. 
After receiving his diploma at Jena, he com- 
menced his medical practice at Liegnitz. His 
didactic poem, "Die Gesundbrunnen" on the me- 
dicinal waters of Germany, has been noticed 
favourably by A. W. Schlegel. But a specimen 
from his minor poems will be sufficient for our 
purpose. 

A SPRING EVENING. 

TO LINA. 

Softly reddening, in the evening beaming, 
O'er the fields in golden billows streaming, 
Waves the yellow corn along the vale 
Echoing to the piping of the quail. 

List ! the softly-rustling, sparkling shower 
Strews the mead with many a bended flower, 
O'er the vale the rainbow spans in peace, 
Bright with promise all its hues increase. 

From yon mead where husbandmen are mowing 
Balsam scents are on the breezes flowing ; 
Mildly beaming, Hesper's golden eye 
Looks out from the purple western sky. 

Hither, Lina ! while we have the power, 
Haste, enjoy the glorious evening hour : — 
Pleasure, such as Aoavs around us here, 
Never wakens one repentant tear. 



SCHUBART.— LOUISE BRACHMANN. 



51 



When old age shall shed his timely snows 
On our heads inclining to repose, 
Death shall come, as softly as these shadows 
Stealing over sky and hills and meadows. 



CHR. FR. DAN. SCHUBART. 

Schtjbart was born in 1739, and died in 1791. 
Of his life we have little good to tell, and accordingly 
our notice must be very short. After a wild career 
as a student, he gained a situation as schoolmaster 
and organist at Geislingen. There, also, he found 
a good-tempered and patient wife, whom, however, 
he drove away by his recklessness and vice. Some 
profane satires from his pen raised such an outcry 
against him that he was expelled from his situa- 
tion and driven from the country. Then he 
became a wanderer, and strolled from one town to 
another, supporting himself by his skill in music, 
sometimes making friends, and soon, by his mis- 
conduct, turning them into foes. At last his 
satires brought upon him the despotism of the 
Duke of Wiirtemberg, who imprisoned him for 
ten years. During his confinement his poems 
were published, and derived interest from the 
singularly hard fate of their author. He was re- 
leased in 1787. 

The greater number of Schubart's poems are 
worthless ; but a few of his verses may claim a 
place among our notices of minor poets. 



THE VAULT OF THE PRINCES. 

And here they lie — these ashes of proud princes, 

Once clad in proud array, 
Here lie their bones, in the melancholy glimmer 

Of the pale dying day. 

And their old coffins from the vault are gleaming, 

Like rotten timber, side by side, 
And silver family-shields are faintly beaming — 

Their last display of pride ! 

Here vanity, reclining on a bier, 
Looks out from hollow sockets still, 

Quench' d are the fiery balls that from these skulls 
Could look and kill. 

Here marble angels weep beside their urns, 

Cold tears of stone for aye, — 
The Italian sculptor {smiling all the while) 

Carved out their false array. 

The mighty hand is but a mouldering bone 

That once held life and death : — 
See that frail breast-bone, heaving once so high 

Bright stars and gold beneath ! 

O wake them not, but let them soundly sleep ; 

For cruel was their reign, 
But scare yon ravens, lest their croakings wake 

Wutherich to life again. 

wake them not — the scourges of their race — 

Earth has for them no room — 
Soon, soon enough will over them be rattling 

The thunders of their doom ! 



LOUISE BRACHMANN. 

There is little that can be pleasing to an 
English reader in the biography of our poetess ; but 
the life of Louise Brachmann presents such a sketch 
of the faulty side of German literary character, 
that we must give a little space to it — more than 
the merits of the poetess would demand. The 
false sentimentality, the incorrect notions of true 
love and true morality, which render many German 
fictions so sickly and unwholesome, were displayed 
in the real life of this unfortunate writer. 

The parents of Louise were good and respect- 
able persons, and her early education was favour- 
able to the development of her best faculties. At 
Weissenfels she became acquainted with the young 
Baron von Hardenberg, afterwards celebrated as 
a mystical writer under the name of Novalis, who 
assisted her in her youthful studies, and afterwards 
recommended some specimens of her early poetry 
to the notice of Schiller, who published several 
of them, to the peril of the young poetess, we ima- 
gine, for she was only then in her fourteenth year. 

Some years afterwards Louise resided at Dres- 
den, and there a youthful indiscretion involved 
her feelings in such shame and remorse, as to call 
forth that suicidal passion, for which she became 
afterwards remarkable. She returned from Dres- 
den to her father's house, and after suffering for 
some time under a fever, recovered so far as to be 
able to leave her room. At her desire, her father 
led her to the corridor of the house, one summer 
evening, when suddenly she released herself from 
his arm, and threw herself from the landing. 

The consequence of this rash attempt was not 
fatal ; but, in the course of a little time she seemed 
to recover her health and spirits. New troubles soon 
came upon her : her parents and several of her friends 
died, leaving her almost alone and unsupported in 
the world. In these forlorn circumstances, she 
devoted herself to a lot, which even men of the 
best talents and energies have found arduous and 
unhappy, and which must be miserable indeed for 
a woman — she determined to gain a subsistence 
by writing for the press ! In this vocation she 
laboured with the greatest diligence, and wrote 
romances for the payment of four dollars a sheet, 
and of this she was required to take half the value 
in books. It would not be fair to criticise what 
a poor woman wrote in such circumstances. 

Her writings, however, gained her some friends, 
and, among others, Herr Schmidt, a gentleman in 
some office at Weissenfels, who received the poor 
authoress into his family. But now ensued misery 
caused by her own want of prudence and self- 
government. An attachment to a French surgeon 
(already married) led her to disappointment and 
despair. 

Yet, shortly afterwards, we find her betrothed to 
a Prussian officer, named Miillner, and wandering 
about with him to Weimar, to Vienna, and to 
Munich, vainly in quest of theatrical success. This 
engagement was soon broken off, as might have been 
expected ; for Miillner was only twenty-five years 
old, while our poetess had reached her forty-third 
year. From another Prussian officer, who had too 
warmly interested her ill-regulated affections, she 
ran away, and found a place of refuge in the house 
of Professor Schiitz at Halle. Here she again 
e2 



52 



LOUISE BRACHMANN. 



attempted suicide, but was prevented from drowning 
herself by the police. She continued to yield to her 
melancholy, and to cherish a hatred of life, until, 
at last, she found an opportunity of escaping from 
the family in which she resided, and drowned her- 
self in a neighbouring stream, having tied a stone 
around her body to make sure of her purpose. — 
Here is one of her best ballads. 



THE NIGHT IN THE MILL. 

Away, away, o'er hill and dale 

Rode Willibald the knight, 
Through evening radiance, dying, pale, 

And morning glowing bright. 

Returning from the wars, he found 

The maid he loved no more : 
To seek her he would travel round 

Till life and hope were o'er. 

Her picture in his bosom hid, 

His only comfort gave, 
And from the eyes beamed constancy 

To cease but in the grave. 

At eventide the pilgrim knight 

Rode through the forest drear ; 
The sound of falling water fell 

Upon his listening ear. 

He left the wood, and saw the stream 

Fall in a bright cascade, 
Upon the shore a water-mill 

Stood in the fir-trees'' shade; 

Behind a rock and five brown firs, 

With rustling branches, stood ; 
And evening's parting radiance fell 

On mill, rock, trees, and flood. 

The knight stood still with fixed eyes 

And meditative face ; 
It seemed as if some ghost unseen 

Did hold him to the place. 

The quiet solitary mill 

Invited him to stay ; 
His steed was tired — the night came on — 

And rocky was the way. 

The stream roar'd loud, and whirl' d aloft 

Its foamy billows hoar ; 
The knight was brave, and, dashing through, 

Soon gain'd the other shore. 

He found a shelter for his steed, 

And, in a little room 
Within the mill the knight lay down, 

In twilight's gathering gloom. 

And now the stars looked out, and cast 

Their rays down in the dale, 
Till, in the lonely chamber shone 

The dawning faint and pale. 

The knight looked from the window out; 

Upon a mountain lay 
The silver moon, with clouds about 

In silent, sad array. 



Below, the stream flow'd through the dale, 

The knight in silence stood, 
And heard, with melancholy soul, 

The murmurs of the flood. 

He drew the picture from his breast, 

And kissed it o'er and o'er — 
Then hung it on the chamber wall, 

And lay down as before. 

He lay awake — he heard a sound — 

A misty, twilight form 
Entered his room — his thrilling veins 

By turns were cold and warm. 

His heart beat loud — his breath was gone-— 

He saw the spectre dim — 
And now the portrait on the wall 

Began to speak to him. 

" God bless thee, young and noble knight, 
Heaven brought thee here for me — 

From underneath the rolling flood 
I come to talk with thee. 

" This only night 'tis granted me 

To walk on solid ground ; 
At cock-crow I must haste away, 

And never more be found !" 

" My love, how came you from the flood ?"* 

The knight began with fear — 
" How rest you in your watery home — 

How came you ever here ?" 

" Oh many years have pass'd in tears," 

The misty form did say, 
" Since, with my father travelling, here 

I rested at mid-day. 

" Our company were resting all ; 

But I would trace the stream. 
Which, winding, flow'd along the vale, 

With many a pleasant gleam. 

" Then, sudden in a lonely spot, 

The water-spirit rose, 
And sang a lay which fill'd my ear 

With many a charming close. 

" I, listening, stood, and dare not move — 
She brought me from the wave 

Three lilies, white as driven snow, 
And roses too she gave. 

" I took the flowers ; she seized my form, 

And to her bosom press'd, 
And soon beneath the silver flood, 

I lay upon her breast. 

" And then she led me on and on 

To where her sisters dwell, 
In a still cave, with crystal walls, 

Deep 'neath the river's swell. 

" ' Thou art for ever mine,' said she — 

' My magic holds thee fast ; 
Only true love can set thee free 

From spells about thee cast. 



CHRISTIAN AND FREDERICK STOLBERG. 



53 



" ' If six years more thy wandering knight, 

Shall keep his love for thee, 
As pure and holy, true and bright, 

Then go, for thou art free ! ' 

" So said the water-sprite, and then 

My life flowed on in tears : — 
I 've seen no heaven, no forest green 

For now six watery years. 

" The time is gone — the night is come — 

And I might now be free, 
If still, as well as once I knew 

My Willibald loved me." 

" I love thee ! — thus I hold thee fast," 

Said he, " to leave thee never ; 
Their magic shall no longer last 

For thou art mine for ever ! " 

A few verses from a poem entitled " Consola- 
tion " may close our notice of the unfortunate 
Louise Brachmann. We think there is great 
beauty and elegance in these lines. 



CONSOLATION FOR ABSENCE. 

Our eyes still drink from the same fount of light ; 

The same wind round us softly breathes or blows ; 
We both lie veiled in the same cloud of night ; 

One Spring to both its opening glories shows. 

When morning dawns, I cry : " Awaken day ! 

And strew thy roses wheresoe'er he roam ; " 
When in the sea the sun is sinking — " stay, 

And cast a gleam to light him to his home. 

" Still glow upon the hill his eyes behold 

With beams of promise, when his heart feels lone, 

While on yon coppice, tinged with fainter gold, 
I gaze till all the evening-glow is gone." 

What lofty mountain is he travelling o'er ? 

What favoured valley do his eyes survey ? 
What happy lake, beside some foreign shore, 

Mirrors his beauteous aspect, far away ? 

In visionary, moonlit, silent night, 

When ghostly forms on distant mountains shine, 
My heart beats high — I say with deep delight : 

" He lives — however distant, he is mine ! " 

And, as the stars look out, a gladdening ray 

Seems darting from his eye to cheer my heart — 

All thoughts of earthly distance melt away,^ 
We meet in heaven — and never more to part ! 



CHRISTIAN AND FREDERICK STOLBERG. 

These brothers, descended from a titled family, 
were both noted as poets in their day. Christian, 
the elder, was born at Hamburgh, in 1748 ; Leo- 
pold, the better poet, was born at Bramstadt in 
1750. There was nothing remarkable in his life, 
excepting his conversion to the Roman Catholic 
church, which raised some excitement in the 
literary world. 



To the praise of Germany be it said that no 
country has a literature so rich in truly pious, 
simple and Christian hymns of praise and thanks- 
giving to the Creator. Many of their devotional 
lyrics are true models of simplicity and fervour. 
The very first lines of some of their old psalms 
breathe a charm over the soul, and introduce us to 
the choral harmony of their churches, filled with 
the blending voices of worshippers. 

"Nun sich der Tag geendet hat;" "And now 
the day is ended." — " Mache dich mein Geist 
bereit;" "Prepare thyself, my soul." — " Wie 
schdn leucht uns der Morgenstern!" "How fairly 
shines the Morning-Star ! " — " Freu dich sehr, 
meine Seele;" "Rejoice exceedingly my soul." — 
"0 Jesu Christ meines Lebenslicht ;" Jesu 
Christ, my Light of Life." — " Wir glauben air an 
einen Gott ;" "We all in one same God believe.' 
— " Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier;" " Dearest Jesu, 

we are here." What fine music there is even 

in these opening lines ! But in songs of a lighter 
and more cheerful, yet still a pious character, 
German poetry also abounds ; and of these the 
following " Thanksgiving Song," by Leopold Stol- 
berg, may serve as a specimen. — 



THANKSGIVING SONG. 

To God who life and spirit gave, 

Let all give praises due, 
And from the cradle to the grave 

Tbeir thankful songs renew. 
For joy he gave our vital breath, 

And all we love below, 
With promises that, after death, 

More pleasures we shall know. 

Like happy children let us spend 

Our days in constant cheer : — 
For us our Father and our Friend 

Has spread an Eden here. 
His breath gives warmth to summer days ; 

His billows cool the air; 
In heaven bears witness of his ways, 

The rainbow bright and fair. 

And meadows, mountains, fields and woods, 

Display his goodness round ; 
And all the shores of mighty floods 

With his great name resound. 
To him the nightingale, at dark, 

Sings gladly ; — let us join, 
And raise, in concert with the lark, 

A melody divine. 

Our fields, of late, were hard and white — 

Earth's breast there seemed no glow in ; 
But God looks down in warmth and light — 

Ice melts and corn is growing : 
From hives the honey trickles out ; 

Lambs leap by flowing rills ; 
In all the vineyards round about 

The grape with juices fills. 

From labouring brows down trickle drops, 

In vineyard and in field ; 
We toil, and trust that autumn's crops 

Shall ample riches yield. 



54 



GLEIM. 



Without a fear we strew the seed 
And yield the hirds their due ; 

Help every soul that suffers need, 
And hid him gladden too. 

In love for us the Lord of All 

Has made the earth so fair ; 
For us he decks the earthly hall 

With precious fruits and rare. 
Therefore, let us he Givers all, 

Diffuse as we receive, 
Be like the Lord, the Bountiful, 

And like our Father live. 

But he who hut his harvest takes 

And scorns the blooming hours, 
Forgets that God's good sunshine wakes 

A thousand lovely flowers. 
The hlue weeds scatter'd o'er the lea 

God's hand hath planted there, 
The reapers' dance he loves to see, 

When joy dispels their care. 

And friendship from the Lord descends ; 

He gives the glowing heart ; 
He loves the sight when faithful friends 

Their joys and sorrows part. 
He smiles when wedded love is blest 

With true paternal bliss ; 
And when the infant at the breast 

Receives the mother's kiss. 

With joy he sees our children fair 

Like flowers around us growing, 
The father's brow releas'd from care 

With secret bliss is glowing; 
Or when the youth, with studious lore 

Enriches well his mind, 
Or the Poet's wings would upward soar, 

And leave the earth behind. 

As mothers show their little ones 

The thousand blooms of spring, 
God shews us all his stars and suns 

In heaven's expanded ring. 
We view the wonders of his hand 

From this low, earthly ball, 
And know our own dear Fatherland 

Lies far beyond them all. 

Care, on our life's swift-flowing stream, 

Floats like a foamy wreath ; 
Our days are but a morning dream, 

A slumber short is death. 
We sink, contented, in the dust — 

The Lord will keep us all — 
We give the worms their due, and trust 

That God for us will call. 

Then let us all together raise, 

Long as we here remain, 
A song of praise, and children's lays 

Shall mingle in the strain. 
And when to know our children pray 

The name of Him above, 
clasp them to your hearts and say, 

Our Father's name is Love. 



GLEIM. 

This little man was quite a marvel in his day. 
In his snug cottage at Halberstadt he lived through 
many happy years, uniting in his person the 
attributes of Anacreon and Mecsenas, as his ad- 
mirers thought. He possessed a friendly soul, 
delighted to help his brother poets, and had just 
enough genius to find pleasant occupation in the 
composition of little songs, anacreontic and ama- 
tory, all of which may be read with perfect safety. 
He lived a gay, harmless, and friendly bachelor, 
to the age of seventy and upwards, writing his 
little odes about Wine and Love, Bacchus, Venus, 
Cupid, Apollo and the Muses ; keeping himself 
in a far happier mood than such men as Dante, 
Tasso, and Milton could sustain ; never complain- 
ing of the vanity of human life, but closing his 
career with a triumphant exclamation — 

" All my life, thank heaven ! has been 
One harmonious song 1 " 



Such little fellows manage to live in excellent 
good humour with themselves. A company of 
true brother spirits, little poets, surrounded Gleim 
at Halberstadt, and he was never left to feel him- 
self alone in the world, as greater men have felt. 
A lively temperament is surely an invaluable gift 
of Heaven. Herder, after writing so much and so 
well, would often exclaim, " Ah, my wasted life ! " 
Schiller could never satisfy himself — could never 
do a thing as it ought to be done. Gleim felt no 
such dissatisfaction with himself or his works ; 
because he was a little man and never had ideas 
too large to be comfortably wrapped up under his 
night-cap every evening. Surely such a happy 
little fellow could not have employed himself more 
harmlessly than in versification ; but we cannot 
see anything in his productions worthy of preser- 
vation. They are (as Johnson falsely said of 
Macpherson's " Ossian") nothing more than what 
" many men, many women, and many children 
might write." However, as Gleim holds a place 
among the poets in German catalogues, we may 
give two or three brief specimens of his quality, 
and leave the reader to seek a more intimate 
acquaintance with the little bard of Halberstadt, 
if he pleases. 

SONG. 

Gay flowers shine out and fade away 

To show their Maker's glory ; 
And we who look on them to-day, 
Like them, to-morrow fade away, 

And that is all man's story. 

But as the flowers that seem'd to die, 

Bloom in the season vernal — 
All glowing 'neath their Maker's eye, 
In glory looking from the sky, 

So man shall bloom eternal. 

Gleim loved mere trifles, and thought earnest- 
ness an enemy to the muses. Here is one of his 

jokes : — 



ERNST SCHULZE. 



55 



THE STAR-GAZER. 

The man who knows the planets 
And in the starry regions, 
Seeks out new suns and systems, 
And every night spends waking, 
Remote from love and pleasure, 
Invited me, one evening, 
To stay with him star-gazing. 

A thousand stars were lighting 
The lofty arch of heaven. 
They sparkled in the azure, 
And scatter' d slender rays down, 
Till, up the moon arising, 
A flood of radiance shedding, 
Within her hroader splendour 
The little twinklers vanish'd. 

I cried out to the moon, 

" O tyrant, why he quenching 

The little sparks of heaven?" 

But here my friend, moon-gazer, 

Called out, — " Be still, you blockhead," 

" Stand firmly thus," he added, 

And laid across my shoulder 

His tube, as if for shooting. 

" Steady !" said he, " now let me 

Count all the hills and valleys, 

The seas and lakes and rivers, 

And pastures in the moon." 

He counted up to twenty, 

Then stopp'd and said, with wonder, 

" There are Maidens in the moon !" 

The Man who never laugh' d, 
Now laughed and laughed again ; 
He quizz'd the moon once more, 
And then laughed louder still. 
" What wondrous girls !" said he, 
" They dance with lunar youths 
In geometric figures — 
How finely marked the angles ! 
With telescopes and quadrants, 
I see the maidens sporting ; 
They stand upon the mountains 
And spy at us, with glasses 
Far longer than were known to 
Copernicus and Euler ! 
I never danced with maidens 
But — with the moon-girls yonder ! 

might I dance and frolic 
With the maidens of the Moon ! " 

Said I, " My dear star-gazer, 

Allow me but a peep ! " 

Said he — " Let 's pull the tube out 

A little further — so — " 

Just then I caught the sparkle 

Of my Fanny's jet-black eye — • 

(She had overheard our nonsense 

And had laughed at it behind us) 

Said I, " My good star-gazer, 

1 leave you all the maidens 

In the moon — and I '11 have this one / " 

Trivial enough — but it has its moral, as some 
old bachelors can tell, who have lost all chance of 



finding a sublunary wife in their search after 
ideal perfection. 

One trifle more and we have done with Gleim. 

The first kiss ever stolen from me ! 

'Twas caught, I can't tell how — 
He has it — well, that comforts me — 
I wander'd in the wood, you see, 

Too early, I '11 allow. 

That he was not in bed, asleep, 

Was all a chance, you see — 
Well, well, his heart is true and deep, 
And no one can a secret keep 

More faithfully than he ! 

As another specimen of the German poetical 
temperament we give a short notice of Schulze, 
the author of " Cecilia" and the " Enchanted Hose." 



ERNST SCHULZE. 

Ernst Schulze was born at Celle in 1789. He 
was an imaginative boy, and, like many young 
poets, averse from school-discipline and fond of 
pastimes. His favourite reading, in his youthful 
days, was found in the romances of chivalry and 
the legends of faery-land. Not far from Celle 
there was an old, half-ruinous country-house, where 
young Ernst found, to his great delight, a whole 
library of old romances, and a study quite in 
character with the books it contained. Here he 
passed many of his youthful days, yielding up his 
mind to all the wild play of imagination and luxury 
of melancholy reverie of which the young German 
poet is so fond. The grey morning and the glim- 
mering twilight found him in the old dusky cham- 
ber, poring over the legends of the olden time, 
with his imagination crowded with shadows of old 
towers and castles, stern old barons, fair and noble 
ladies, and all the other reminiscences of the days 
of chivalry ; enjoying his new-found wealth of 
fiction as only a young and enthusiastic reader can 
enjoy it ; like one, suddenly made master of an 
enchanted castle with all its wondrous apparatus. 
This luxurious course of reading, while it excited 
his imagination and nourished his romantic sen- 
timents, seems to have enfeebled his understanding 
and made him averse from any strict mental dis- 
cipline. Of this we find a proof in his strong 
dislike to all mathematical studies. 

Law and medicine, too, were included in the 
list of his dislikes ; and he seems to have chosen, 
when he entered the University, the profession of 
theology, merely pro formd. He soon found it 
irksome, and devoted himself entirely to philolo- 
gical studies and polite literature. Wieland's poems 
had a considerable effect upon his genius and gave 
a gay and cheerful tone to his early effusions in 
verse. Shakespeare and Spenser were his favourite 
English poets ; and among the Italian writers he 
was most attached to Ariosto. 

But love gave a new direction to his mind, and 
breathed another spirit into his poetry. His chosen 
lady was Cecilia, the daughter of a professor at 
Gottingen — a fair and well-educated young maiden. 
The love which our young poet devoted to this 
lady, was, in a great measure, visionary and ideal ; 
like the sentiment, which Goethe represents as 
drawing Tasso towards his patroness, the Princess 



5G 



VOSS. 



Leonora — such love as only an imaginative German 
or a young poet can feel — such love as seldom finds 
a happy issue in this world. Schulze had to see 
his chosen Cecilia sinking under a mortal malady, 
and, when she died, with her seemed to die all his 
thoughts and hopes of a cheerful life. As he 
looked upon the pale corpse, the only feeling that 
softened his despair was an enthusiastic determi- 
nation that he would devote all his powers of poetry to 
celebrate her beauty and virtue. All his ideal visions 
of loveliness, his aspirations and longings for some 
object to which he might devote his whole soul, 
had been embodied in the fair girl just departed ; 
and now her memory was the only charm left in 
life — the only excitement to his poetic genius. He 
poured forth all his imaginative reveries in a long 
poem devoted to the name of Cecilia. It would 
require all that love of the theme which inspired 
the melancholy young poet to carry the reader 
through the whole composition. When he had 
written many cantos, Schulze found his health 
declining ; but, happily, a new interest called him 
back to life, and patriotic fervour broke the mono- 
tonous complaint of disappointed love. He joined 
a regiment of volunteers about 1814, and, during 
the time of his soldiership, the hardships and exer- 
tions of field-exercises and marches restored his 
nerves to firmness and breathed cheerfulness again 
into his mind. But, at the close of his military 
excursion, he returned to Gottingen, a place linked 
with dear and sad memories, and here devoted 
himself to the completion of his " Cecilia." Again 
his health was failing, and he found it necessary to 
leave the place, but not before he had finished the 
poem, which contains twenty cantos, and was written 
within the space of two years and a half : Schulze 
had a remarkable facility in versification. His 
next project was to visit Rome, and, under the sky 
of Italy, yield to fresh inspirations and write a 
romantic poem in a cheerful vein. In carrying 
out this design he was hindered by another attack 
of illness upon his consumptive constitution. 
During this illness he wrote the poem of " the En- 
chanted Rose" which is a good specimen of the 
smoothness and elegance of his versification ; but 
has not enough of human character, adventure and 
interest to attract many readers. In 1817, he 
again proposed to start on his journey to Italy ; 
but his illness increased, and with difficulty he 
reached his father's house at Celle, where he died 
in 1817, aged twenty-nine years. His private and 
practical character was amiable and generous. 

Ernst Schulze, in the temperament of his genius, 
displayed the peculiarities of the sentimental 
German. With much that is amiable, there is 
something morbid in such a disposition. There is 
a want of the manliness, the vigour, the mastery 
over practical life which marks our best English 
poets. With such youths as Schulze there is a 
tendency to indulge the poetic sentiments to an 
excess, to concentrate all the interest of the mind 
upon some ideal and visionary object, instead of 
diffusing it through the actual duties of human 
society. The luxurious dream of melancholy is 
indulged, as old Burton in his " Anatomy " has so 
well explained, until that which was, at first, a 
pensive joy becomes, at last, a moping despair, and 
the visionary finds that for his lonely dream he 
has sacrificed the whole of actual life, which, with 
its numerous cares, has also many joys. Then 



comes the "tcedium vitce" and the longing for 
death, the passion for the mysterious and the un- 
known, of which we find expressions in Novalis 
and many other German writers. Such charac- 
teristics of poetic genius among the Germans must 
arise, no doubt, partly from original constitution, 
but partly also from the habits of society and false 
ideas both of the nature of true religion and the 
nature of true poetry. In Germany, the intellec- 
tual life of the educated is too far severed from 
the actual world. Hence learning and philosophy 
are pursued rather for the love of intellectual re- 
search than as means for the improvement of 
human society ; religion is cultivated rather for 
the enjoyment of the excitement it affords to such 
sentiments as devotion and the love of the mys- 
terious and marvellous, than as a means for the prac- 
tical improvement of mankind ; and poetry is em- 
ployed to express the mere sentiments of the writer, 
instead of being a living and cheerful representa- 
tion of human life, its realities, its capabilities, its 
sufferings and conquests, its sins, sorrows, joys, 
hopes, cares and fears. In many young poets, like 
Schulze, there is a narrowness of sphere, a want 
of large sympathy and true familiarity with the 
manifold varieties of human existence. The poet 
is occupied chiefly with his own monotonous feel- 
ings, or, if he leaves egotistic contemplation, it is 
only to enter upon a world of mysterious genii, 
fairies, gnomes and spectres. All the poets of 
Germany together have not done so much to make 
men know themselves, by knowing each other, as 
our great Shakespeare. Shakespeare was never a 
German, except for a little while, in his " Sonnets." 
Of course, there are exceptions to these remarks ; 
but they are too generally applicable to German 
genius of the poetical order.* 

VOSS. 

The domestic Idyl, " Luise," which has been 
such a favourite with German readers, will hardly 
enchant the less-easily-pleased English mind with 
its pictures of quiet and happy life. The novel- 
reader would require Luise to be, at least, half 
drowned, or carried away by robbers, in order to 
feel an interest in her good fortune : but no evil 
accident befals Luise throughout this amiable (but 
rather sleepy) poem, which sings of happiness in 
the beginning, happiness in the middle, and happi- 
ness in the end. 

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton says of this homely 
production, that it is "thoroughly repugnant to 
English taste : " — so it would be, we suspect, if we 
gave a full translation of the whole poem, for our 
readers would hardly have patience with the long- 
drawn-out humour of treating little homely mat- 
ters with all the solemnity of the heroic style. 

Still, as it once enjoyed much popularity, and is 
truly characteristic of some portion of German 
literature, we cannot pass it in silence, but must 
venture on a translation of a few pages. 

As we cannot imitate the flow of the German hex- 
ameters, our version must descend to humble prose. 
This mode of treatment may have its advantages ; 
for though German poets have been fond of imi- 
tating the classic metres, we h ave seldom admired 
* For a specimen of the poetry of Ernst Schulze we 
may refer the English reader to a translation of his " En- 
chanted Rose," by Caroline E. Crespigny." 



voss. 



57 



their success. Even Goethe's hexameters in 
" Hermann and Dorothea," are condemned as 
" rugged " by a brother-poet, Platen, who was a 
superior judge in rhythmical melody. Voss filled 
up his hexameters with prolixity : we shall make 
about one line out of half-a-dozen of the original ; 
and, even then, the " fast man " in literature, who 
wants something striking in every page, will find 
the poetry slow enough. 

THE FESTIVAL IN THE WOOD. 

" The worthy old parson of Griinau sat, luxu- 
riating in the loose folds of his morning-gown, (as 
was the fashion in the olden time,) at the birth-day 
dinner of his daughter, Louisa, which was cele- 
brated in the open air : the table of stone stood in 
the breezy shade of two wide-spreading lime-trees, 
covered with yellow blossoms, and filled with the 
soft murmurs of bees. The guests were seated 
upon six rush-bottomed stools, which Hans, the 
servant-man, had secretly manufactured for the 
occasion ; but the good old father enjoyed the 
privilege of the arm-chair. After dinner he sat 
to help digestion with light chat, interspersed 
with many oft-told anecdotes. The pet-chicken, 
tame as its mother, the pearl-coloured hen, pecked 
crumbs from the hand of Louisa ; the cock with 
all his wives, stood at a little distance, waiting for 
morsels to be thrown ; while the gobbling turkey 
pecked at a bone, and the doves came down from 
the roof to share the feast, cooing in their delight, 
but sometimes looking sidelong at the cat, who was 
waiting for her share. 

" Mamma, smiling in the middle of one of the 
old parson's oft-told stories, which she knew by 
heart, slily gave Louisa a pull at the elbow, and 
then whispered in her ear : — ' Shall we go to the 
wood, Louisa, or, as the sun is so hot, what say you 
to the honeysuckle bower by the rivulet ? Now 
what are you blushing about?' 

" ' not to the honey-suckle bower,' said Louisa, 
' its scent is so faint in the evening ; it will be 
delightfully shady on the side of the wood.' The 
mother nodded at once her approbation of this 
decision, and now turned to address the narrative 
old parson. 

" ' Shall we return thanks, father ? ' said she, 
' Louisa prefers the side of the wood to the bower 
by the stream, and I am of her opinion. Let 
Walter, Charles, and Louisa go before us to choose 
a place, and find wood to boil our kettle. What a 
pity it is, that this stiff visit of ceremony must 
keep the ladies, both mother and daughter, at the 
castle, for how we should enjoy Amelia's liveliness ! 
how sweetly her voice would sound in the wood ! 
these young creatures may walk round, but we 
old people will take the near way over the lake : 
the steward will readily lend us the skiff. But 
first you must have your after-dinner nap, or you 
will not enjoy the evening : the scent of the bean- 
field makes one sleepy.' 

" ' Hear how your mother takes the whole 
management of the day into her own hands ! ' said 
the parson of Griinau — ' but I will be obedient ; 
anything to make my Louisa's birth-day pleasant ! 
Now let us give thanks to God for our refresh- 
ment :' so saying, the old man uncovered his 
head, thinly surrounded with snow-white hair, and 
folded his hands as he prayed : — 



"'Merciful God, who fillest all thy creatures 
with refreshment and gladness, receive the thanks 
of thy children : preserve us through life, from grief 
and from folly, and give us our daily bread, until we 
lay aside all earthly cares, and enter into the joy of 
thy glorious kingdom ! ' Then, turning to his youth- 
ful guests, the old man added, ' My children I 
wish you a blessing on what you have taken.' The 
young people thanked the good parson with a 
kiss ; then, while he folded his daughter in his 
arms, the mother seized the opportunity of making 
an apology for a rural dinner : 'Have you enjoyed 
yourselves \ ' said she, as she held the hands of 
her guests ; ' 'Twas but a plain family dinner, and 
unworthy of noble guests — but will you take coffee 
immediately, as the gentry do \ ' Then answered 
Walter : ' The good is better than the fashionable, 
mamma ; if the king himself were not satisfied with 
such a meal, under the shade of these lime-trees, 
and in such company, he would deserve to hunger. 
We will take our coffee under the birch-trees by 
the side of the wood : Charles is an excellent cook : 
come, we will soon have the skiff ready for you.' 

" But the father had heard the words of apology, 
which he disliked : 'Away with apologies, mother! 
What ! was the rice-soup burnt % Or what was 
the matter with the roast lamb and peas ? Or, 
perhaps, your salad was at fault ? Hush, hush, all 
foolish apologies, despising God's good gifts for the 
sake of fashion ! Away to the wood, my children, and 
come here, mother, let us make up our quarrel 
with a kiss.' The good wife whispered as she 
consented : ' You must not be cross, papa, when 
one just says a word, as fashion will have it ; 
but now, come, you must have your nap in the 
alcove, where not a fly will disturb you, for 
Susanna has enticed them all into her basin of 
milk and pepper.' So saying, she led him into 
the little chamber* where she arranged his pillow, 
and drew down the blind. 

" Meanwhile Hans had run to the steward, to 
beg the loan of the skiff. It was granted imme- 
diately : ' Here, take the key of the boat-house,' 
said the steward : ' Anything to make pleasure 
for Louisa's birth-day ! ' " 

We suspect the reader has already been guilty 
of a yawn, or is, perhaps, laughing at Louisa, the 
parson of Griinau, and his good wife, and at us 
also, for our trouble in introducing such homely 
characters to English society. Yet we must 
exercise the reader's patience a little farther with 
this quiet " festival in the wood." 

But now we are coming to something more like 
poetry, and our translation must soar above this 
humble prose, at least into blank verse. 

We must not attempt anything like a close 
translation, as we are sure that the reader's plea- 
sure would not reward our pains in that case ; but 
the following passages will give a fair notion of the 
style and spirit of this homely pastoral poem : — 

So said the Steward, as he gave the key 
To Hans, who hastened to prepare the boat 
To carry the good parson o'er the lake. 
Meanwhile Luise holding Walter's arm, 
Walked by the mill-stream down the grassy vale. 



* The apartment styled the alcove is a little sleeping- 
room, often only divided from the dwelling-room by a 
curtain. 



58 



voss. 



Now let me celebrate her dress ! she wore 

A frock of snowy muslin, rosy-striped ; 

A light gauze kerchief flutter' d on her bosom, 

And a straw hat, with azure corn-flowers decked, 

Threw its soft shade upon her rosy face. 

Her dark-brown hair upon her shoulders flow'd, 

Loose-bound with rosy silk, and glistening in the sun. 

They walked together through the flowery grass, 
Then through the bushy hazel-copse they climbed 
To the old maple ; here Luise stood 
With rosily-glowing face, and thus she spoke : 
" Here let us rest, and catch the cooling breeze 
That ripples yonder lake, and waves the corn. 
How all the country smiles ! yon billowy fields 
How beautiful with red and azure flowers ! 
See, mid yon orchard- trees, the hamlet's tower, 
The silver brook, the church-clock's glistening face, 
And there among the chesnut-trees, the castle ! " 

So said Luise' as she led the way, 

Down to the sunny vale, while Karl, the boy, 

Before them chased the glittering dragon-fly, 

Yet often slily turned, and looked behind. 

Then, whispering something, close to Walter's cheek 

The maiden turned her face, and Walter turned 

And softly press' d a kiss upon her lips : 

But suddenly, and with a smiling blush, 

She turned away to pluck a little flower, 

And look at it in silent wonderment ! 

But now they heard the boy's shout from the bushes : 
" Here are the strawberries, red as scarlet here, 
The bank is covered with them, what a treat 
To carry home ! O for a wicker basket ! " 

And then, said Walter, as he came and saw 

The bank with strawberries bright, to Karl the boy : 

" Go gather colt's-foot leaves to hold the berries !" 

" I know a better trick than that ! " cried Karl — 

" I '11 make a basket of the rushes there." 

So said the boy, and bounded down the bank 

To where the rushes grew. Beneath the hazel 

Sat Walter and Luise in the shade, 

Disguising, with indifferent common talk, 

Sweet thoughts of love that in their bosoms thrilled. 

Soon came the boy, with basket ready-made ; 
They filled it to the brim with strawberries, 
Then rose, and walked on farther down the vale. 

Hark ! in the valley sounds the old man's voice, 

The song of the old weaver in the vale, 

Seventy years old, a hearty singer still ! 

His voice was pleasant to Luise's ear, 

Singing " The soul that firmly trusts in God* I " 

"'Tis like a blessing on my birth-day," said 
Luise, " let us talk with the old weaver." 
They found the old man gathering strawberries, 
And Walter heartily took him by the hand : — 

" Thanks for your music ! 'tis a fine old psalm — 
'Tis this good maiden's birth-day, and your voice 
Seemed praying for a blessing on her head. 
Take this, old friend, and drink the maiden's health.' 

The old man took the coin with cheerful smile, 
" Thanks ! I will drink it in a brimming cup, 

* An old German psalm. 



And yours, sir, too — our hamlet knows you both, 

Friends of the poor, you come to do us good. 

Long may she live, I pray, her parents' joy, 

And some day sir, a prize for some good husband/ 

And God make you a worthy parson, sir, 

As I believe he will, for what you preach 

Even now, are no mere school-words learn'd by rote, 

But words with life and truth and spirit in them, 

Strengthening, comforting, and bearing fruit ; 

Only go on, sir, well and you may be 

Some day a man like this good maiden's father ! " 

" So be it," said Walter, as he turned away, 
Then, as the youthful pair walked down the vale, 
The old man, looking after them with joy, 
Dashed from his eyelids gray the dropping tears. 

They walked until they came beside the lake ; 

There was the boat, the venerable pair 

Were sitting at the stern, and Hans was rowing, 

And as the skiff struck on the sedgy bank, 

Cried Karl and Walter, " welcome to the woods ! " 

The aged pair stepp'd slowly o'er the plank, 
Leaning on Walter's arm, then safely landed, 
The gray old man his rosy daughter kiss'd. 

" Father," said she, " what broke your sleep so soon ? 
Has the old hen been cackling of her eggs ?" 
"No," said the parson, " not a hen has cackled, 
My joy has kept my heart awake, dear child ! 
But quick ! the coffee — you must all be thirsty ! " 

Then spoke the mother, full of care and bustle : — 
" Hans, bring the kettle ; here we '11 light the fire 
Where the cool wind will drive the smoke away. 
Where shall we sit ? here, under this old beech, 
This good old family tree, whose rind is mark'd 
With all our names ! how large the letters grow ! — 
This moss about the roots is like a pillow. 
Pleasantly sounds the plashing of the lake. 
Now, children, gather wood to boil the kettle ; 
Who would have pleasure must have trouble too — 
' He that would be a fish must not fear water ! ' 
I know a fountain pure, and sweet and cold, 
Around its brink, they say, the fairies dance ; 
Thence I will draw the water — from this day 
We '11 give it a new name — ' Luise's Spring /' " 

The wood was gather' d : Hans with steel and flint 
Soon struck a light, then put three sticks together 
Over the fire, and hung the kettle on them. 

" Set out the cups, Luise," said the mother — 

(Even in the woods the wife would have her ways 

And ceremonial apologies — ) 

" Walter, excuse these cups of common ware — 

Our coffee we must drink unfiltered too ! " 

" Hush ! " said the parson, and his wife obey'd. 

Luise spread upon the mossy ground 

The cloth, and set the cups in neat array, , 

Then suddenly laughed quietly and said : — 

" And mother has forgot to bring the spoons ! " 

" Soon remedied ! " said Walter — from a birch-tree 

Cutting a branch, he peel'd it, fashion'd spoons 

Of the smooth wood, and handed them around. 

Soon steamed the fragrant coffee in the cups ; 
The father lit his pipe, and mused awhile. 
Now every eye was bright, and every face 



SCHILLER. 



50 



Told of the happy thoughts that flowed within. 
Then from his mouth the father took his pipe, 
And made confession of his happiness :— 

" My daughter I am glad, glad as the birds, 

Or as the squirrels hopping mid these woods. 

'Tis eighteen years since God first gave you me. 

It seems but yesterday since, in the garden, 

Restless I walked, and prayed, and plucked the flowers, 

'Till came the joyful news : — ' a daughter horn ! ' 

It seems hut yesterday, — wife, you remember, 

When, after a long drought, there fell a shower, 

And a bright rainbow spann'd across the vale. 

I walked with you, good mother, in the garden, 

Luise on my arm — then cried the child : 

'See, father, flowers are raining down from heaven !' " 

After this, the old parson and his young friend, 
Walter, engaged in conversation on religious mat- 
ters ; but all this we must pass over. 

Then sat the father rapt in thought awhile, 

Lost in deep revery, as oft he sat 

Studying his sermon on the eve of Sabbath, 

While thoughts of heaven were gathering in his heart ; 

At length he turned towards his rosy daughter, 

And broke the silence — asking for a song. 

The daughter blush'' d, and softly raised the strain, 

But, joining in the song courageously, 

The old man loudly sung with hearty cheer : — 

" Look up ! behold the heavenly blue, 

How soft and deep, and mellow, 
Around, as far as eye can view, 

The fields are green and yellow ! 
Above us how bright 

The leaves are all shining, 
In songs of delight 

Glad birds are combining ! " 

Here we shall say farewell to the worthy parson 
of Griinau and his good daughter. We know not 
exactly how it is, but the fact is certain, that the 
world will not long listen to a tale of unbroken hap- 
piness, and such is the story of Voss's " Luise." 
We have given the reader, in the above passages, 
a fair specimen of the quality of the poem. 

Johann Heinrich Voss, the author of this pas- 
toral, was born in 1751. He was a true German 
in his feelings, industrious as a translator, learned, 
although self-educated, and deserving of honour- 
able mention among the heroes of German litera- 
ture, though he cannot be ranked among poets of 
great original genius. 

Enough at present of little poets : a greater 
man now rises before us — one ardently in love 
with the sublime, the heroic, the beautiful — one 
whose whole life was a strife for poetic excellence 

— Schiller. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SCHILLER. 

A man striving to know and fulfil his destiny, 
to utter the word that is in him, to tell what he 
has to tell to the world, must always be an interest- 
ing object, even if he fails ; but in Schiller we see 
the striving aud heroic literary man equally 



interesting when beating his path through poverty, 
reproach and sickness, and when crowned with 
the' laurel. We need not attempt any critical 
examination of Schiller's writings, as English 
readers have been made better acquainted with 
him than with any other German poet, by trans- 
lations of his best works and several biographical 
and critical notices. Among these we may especi- 
ally refer the reader to Mr. Carlyle's biography of 
Schiller, Coleridge's translation of " Wallenstein " 
and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton's translations of 
the Poems and Ballads of Schiller, with biogra- 
phical and critical notices. We would not attempt 
to do again what has been done ; but, as it would 
appear strange if in a work on German Poetry 
the name of Schiller received no homage, we give 
a brief account of the biography and the charac- 
teristics of the poet. 

Whatever the opinions of critics may have been 
respecting the comparative merits of Goethe and 
Schiller, considered as poetical artists, it must, at 
once, be admitted that, allowing popularity to 
decide, Schiller is the Poet of the German People. 
And were we called upon to point out one writer 
whose works afford an exposition of the German 
character in its strength and in its weakness, with 
its excellencies and its defects, we should, without 
hesitation, refer to Schiller. We must, therefore, 
devote some pages to this name, though it is one 
comparatively well known and understood. The 
character of the man, in this instance, sheds a 
lustre on the writings of the poet. 

The most interesting points in the memoirs of 
Schiller are, the escape of the young poet from 
the trammels of an ungenial school-discipline, his 
struggle to gain a place, at once, in the world and 
in literature, and his final success, won, not long 
before the powers of life, severely tasked for its 
attainment, were exhausted. 

Friedrich Schiller was born at Marbach in 1759. 
Of the poet's father we have nothing remarkable 
to tell ; but his mother was an amiable and imagi- 
native woman. Of our poet's childhood several 
anecdotes have been related, characteristic of the 
musing youthful genius. Amid a thunderstorm 
he was found, when in his seventh year, perched 
on the topmost bough of a lime-tree to discover 
whence came " so much fire from the heavens," as 
he said. 

The most important event of his youth, which 
was destined to have great influence upon his 
career, was his admission, at the age of fourteen, 
into the Military Academy established at Stutt- 
gard by the Duke of Wiirtemberg. This was an 
institution of dry and rigid discipline, where heaven's 
own quickening breath in the bosom of the pupil 
was stifled, and a young poet was expected to lie 
in the hands of a dull pedagogue like " clay in the 
hands of a potter," to be moulded into a priest, 
a lawyer or a soldier, as caprice might dictate. 
Here we may refer to what we have said of the 
education of a poet hi our notice of Goethe's 
" Tasso " ; but, perhaps, all notions of improvement 
in this way are still a little too Utopian ; for the 
world, at the present day, refuses to find a place 
in its system for the poet, and we must therefore 
excuse the Duke of Wiirtemberg who, eighty 
years ago, tried to convert Schiller into a lawyer. 

The experiment proved unsuccessful. Schiller's 
soul rebelled against the powers of dulness. He 



60 



SCHILLER. 



read Wieland's Shakspeare and solaced himself in 
the world of poetry, revealing itself to him hi 
startling contrast with the school-world of dull 
routine to which he was hound. While his peda- 
gogues were teaching him that strange human 
invention called law, and made him hold his head 
stiffly and march to the dinner-table like a soldier 
on parade, he was, secretly, educating himself as a 
poet and preparing to astonish the German world 
with his tragedy " The Robbers" whose very wild- 
ness was produced (strange antithesis !) by the 
stiff, formal routine of the Military Academy. 
The young poet's hatred of law-studies almost 
extended itself to civilised and conventional life 
and drove his imagination into the company of 
bandits in forest-caves. 

Previous to the publication of " The Robbers" 
Schiller had exchanged the study of law for that of 
medicine. At the age of twenty-two, he gave to 
the world his wild drama, in which his own longings 
for intellectual liberty had found a turbulent and 
exaggerated expression. The drama found a public 
ready to receive it, with all its wildness and crudity, 
as the production of a vigorous and revolutionary 
genius ; but it brought upon the head of its youth- 
ful writer the censure of the pedantic and some- 
what arbitrary Duke of Wiirtemberg, who was 
naturally grieved to see his orderly Academy 
produce such very unclassical fruit. There is some 
excuse for the Duke's censure ; for the drama is 
full of the exaggeration and bad taste which might 
be expected from an ardent young poet educated 
as Schiller had been. There was no one to take 
the young dramatist by the hand at this time and 
say : " You are a poet, young man, and have your 
work to do in the world as a poet ; but you sadly 
mistake your vocation if you think that this glori- 
fying of ' Robbers ' is the right way of cultivating 
your powers and doing your duty." — In quite 
another style was the censure of the Duke : — "This 
will not do, Sir ! you are not to be a poet ! You 
must confine your studies to medicine and, if you 
must write, write about drugs and surgery." 
The Duke was not the only person disgusted with 
the wildness of Schiller's play. Another aristo- 
cratical critic expressed his abhorrence of this 
startling production in terms amusingly illustrative 
of that exaggerated tone in which Germans some- 
times talk of literary and theatrical matters : — "If 
I were a God," said he, " and deliberating whether 
I should create the world, and foresaw that in 
that world Schiller's ' Robbers ' would appear, 
I would not create it." Absurd indeed ! — to con- 
demn a whole world for the bad taste of a young 
poet ! 

But Schiller had visited the theatre at Mannheim, 
and had seen his play represented and received 
with the greatest enthusiasm. What against this 
was the cold censure of the Duke ? The man born 
a poet and endowed with a strong will had said 
deeply to himself, in his own breast, " / will be a 
Poet ! " Then came father and mother, the Duke's 
frown, a difficult world, and a host of prudential 
motives to daunt the resolution ; but Schiller went 
forth to the fight — in other words, he fled from 
Stuttgard. Accompanied by a young musician, 
named Streicher, and with only twenty-three florins 
in his pocket, he set out, one night, for Mannheim. 

The Grand Duke Paul of Russia was to visit 
Stuttgard, and all the authorities of the place were 



too full of the excitement of royal preparations, 
illuminations, &c, to observe the departure of an 
obscure young poet. Poor Schiller rode by Lud- 
wigsburg and the Duke's castle, glaring through 
the midnight with a thousand candles ; but stayed 
to look at his father's house and to sigh softly " my 
mother!" How little did the bustling, candle- 
lighting people of Stuttgard dream, that night, that 
one was leaving the city-gate, then only a romantic 
youth, a mere student at the Academy, but of whom 
they would, one day, become far prouder than of 
the glittering visit of the Grand Duke ! Yet so it 
has come to pass — that royal entrance is chiefly 
remembered at Stuttgard because, on that night, 
young Schiller ran away : and now the Stuttgard- 
man, when he shows you the lions of the place, 
points, first of all, to the colossal statue beside the 
palace — there stands Friedrich Schiller / 

Arrived at Mannheim, which had been the scene 
of his theatrical glory, he alarmed the manager of 
the theatre by confessing that he had fled from 
Stuttgard and thus set the Duke at defiance, and 
that his sole hope of making a new step onwards 
in life lay in a manuscript play — " Fiesco." Meier, 
the manager, listened to this play, read by the 
young poet, and, in amazement, asked Streicher, — 
" Is Schiller really the author of the 'Robbers V " It 
seems that Schiller, at that time, like our own 
Thomson, read his own productions in a disadvan- 
tageous style. It required some time to fit this 
new play for the stage. Meanwhile, poor Schiller's 
circumstances were becoming formidably "poetical" 
— his purse was shrinking, and he had left some 
debts behind him at Stuttgard. He thought it 
prudent to remove farther from the forsaken 
capital of Wiirtemberg, and, accordingly, again set 
out on travel, with his faithful friend the young 
musician, Streicher. On the journey Schiller's 
strength was exhausted, and he lay down, sick and 
weary, in a wood, while his friend, equally poor 
and prospectless, watched beside him. The friends, 
at last, arrived at Frankfort, and as Schiller gazed 
from the bridge upon the Maine, he exclaimed ; — 
"which is the deeper, that water or my sufferings ?" 
" But no brave man, and no true poet," says Sir 
Edward Bulwer Lytton, in his genial biographical 
sketch of the poet, " can remain long despondent 
in the midst of a world enriched by the activity of 
his kind, and upheld by the goodness of his Maker." 
A very good sentiment to which it is, sometimes, 
hard to subscribe ! Reiterated disappointments 
vexed Schiller, with regard to his theatrical 
prospects ; but, just when he was feeling the bitter- 
ness of " a world without a friend," he received a 
welcome invitation from a lady who deserves to be 
honourably mentioned in his biography. Madame 
von Wolzogen offered for the shelter of the young 
poet a house which she possessed at Bauerbach, a 
village near Meiningen. 

It is no wonder that, amid the wintry gloom of 
lonely Bauerbach, while roaming through the 
neighbouring woods, or sitting in his uncheered 
study, the young poet fell into that vein of misan- 
thropical feeling which is strangely but closely 
allied to the poetical temperament, which was 
experienced by minds in other respects so various 
as Dante, Milton, Tasso and Byron. 

No wonder if Schiller, at Bauerbach, began to 
ask himself why he should task his powers to please 
or improve a world of cold people who cared not 



SCHILLER. 



61 



whether their poet lived or died. He thought of 
resuming his medical studies — then of escaping to 
that great < city of refuge' — America. 

Solitude, at first, was grateful to his mind and 
he completed the plays which he had in hand. But 
when the task was done and no material improve- 
ment of his prospects appeared, his mind was left 
to wander through a world of gloom. Even his 
favourite study, poetry, was tinged with the gloom 
of his prospects. Surely, there is nothing good 
save a happy, human life, where man's best faculties 
and affections are employed ; and what is literature 
if it is not the reflection of such a life ? — faded and 
dull ! — Where there is no sun there can be no rain- 
bow. 

Coleridge has well expounded this doctrine in 
his Ode addressed to a Lady — 

" Lady ! we receive but what we give, 
And in our life alone doth nature live — 
Ours is her wedding-garment ; ours her shroud." 

Crabbe has told the same tale in his " Lover's 
Journey." To the enthusiastic soul what a name- 
less glory and beauty bathes all the landscape ! — 
for the disenchanted eye there is the same green 
field, the same blue sky ; but whither has fled 

" The light that never was on land or sea ?" 

If summer scenes are dull to wintry hearts, 
dreary indeed must have been Schiller's winter at 
Bauerbach. But soon came a friend bringing 
light and hope. 

Happily, § Madame von Wolzogen arrived to 
break the poet's solitude, and his gloom was soon 
irradiated by a romantic affection which he felt 
towards Charlotte, the youngest daughter of the 
family. Both misfortunes and favours are grega- 
rious : — soon afterwards, the offended Duke left 
the poet unmolested to follow his self-chosen career, 
and Schiller was appointed Poet to the Theatre at 
Mannheim. This would seem a contemptible office 
in England ; but it must be remembered that the 
theatre stands higher in German estimation, and 
its affairs are often treated as things of solemn 
importance. 

Now Schiller had gained a station in the world 
comparatively satisfactory. The circumstances of 
the material man act upon the intellectual man in 
a greater degree than can be imagined by those 
whose lives have known no great changes. Schiller, 
now settled, with a salary, however small, regular, 
and with a way to farther success open before him, 
felt no longer that polemic enthusiasm from which 
" TJie Robbers " had started forth to frighten the 
world. He even meditated a sequel to correct the 
errors of his youthful production. To confirm his 
newly-acquired respectability, the nominal dignity 
of Councillor of Weimar was bestowed on him. 
This suggested thoughts of rising in the world as it 
now is, instead of dreaming of the world as it ought 
to be. To carry out these prudent notions, Schiller 
went to Leipsic and began to think that the Duke 
of Wurtemberg was not so greatly mistalcen as to 
the advantages of jurisprudence over poetry. The 
Author of "The Robbers" now voluntarily pro- 
posed to devote himself to law-studies. But this 
fit of prudence soon passed off. On the strength 
of it, however, he wrote to Schwan, a Mannheim 
bookseller, and ventured to ask for the hand of 



Margaret, the said bookseller's daughter for whom 
he had entertained an affection. Let poets and 
booksellers guess the result : — Schiller was refused. 
Soon after this, he went to Dresden on a visit to 
Korner (the father of the young poet, Theodore) 
and there employed his leisure in writing his tragedy 
of Don Carlos. Here, too, his mind seems to have 
wandered into philosophical speculations in which, 
though he showed refinement and subtilty of 
reflection, he never attained that mastery which 
leads back to the clearness of common sense. 

His next visit was to Weimar, the residence of 
Goethe, Herder and Wieland. He was soon so much 
delighted with the society of this little German 
Athens, that he determined to make it his home. 
Here he became acquainted with his future wife, 
Charlotte von Lengefeld, who resided with her 
mother at Rudolstadt and sometimes visited 
Weimar. 

In the spring of the next year, Schiller chose a 
residence in the valley of Rudolstadt near the 
house of the Lengefelds. This was a happy part 
of his life. His mornings were given to study and 
his evenings were spent in a family circle of 
friends. This pleasant valley, perhaps, was the 
scene of his " Assignation." 

"Hush! what amidst the copses crept 

So swiftly by me now ? 
No — 'twas the startled bird that swept 

The light leaves of the bough. 

"What murmur in the distance spoke, 

And like a whisper died? 
No — 'twas the swan that gently broke 

In rings the silver tide. 

" What yonder seems to glimmer ? 

Her white robe's glancing hues ? 
No — 'twas the column's shimmer 

Athwart the darksome yews." 

Now also, by slow steps, that friendship was 
formed between Schiller and Goethe, which had a 
highly-favourable influence on the development 
of their respective characters. They were not 
too much alike to be friends. They had pursued 
the same object by different roads. Goethe had 
travelled along a very smooth road, and the soft 
scenery of his life's journey had given an expression 
of contentment and repose to his fine face. Schiller 
had been the striving man, and his worn features 
told of the time when "the world was not his 
friend." Schiller, at first, could hardly under- 
stand the smooth, worldly chat of his great con- 
temporary, and Goethe was disgusted with "TJte 
Robbers" and all such productions of the violent 
school. Snugly sheltered at Weimar, he had no 
sympathy with a poetry which talked of war against 
the general principles of respectable society. How- 
ever, these two remarkable men, who had hitherto 
belonged to different schools, became sincere 
friends, and generously helped each other in their 
literary designs. Their correspondence has been 
published, and is interesting to the student. It 
was, partly, through Goethe's interest that Schiller 
received the appointment to the chair of History 
at the University of Jena ; to which he had recom- 
mended himself by his " History of the Revolt of 
the Netherlands." On entering upon this new 






SCHILLER. 



office, the poet was received with the warmest en- 
thusiasm by the students of Jena. 

Schiller had now found his place — the very 
station for which his genius fitted him — and a 
prospect of happiness was opened before him. He 
enjoyed his labours at Jena, and, still more, his 
holidays at Rudolstadt. 

Here he, at last, overcame the prudent foresight 
or aristocratic prejudices of Madame von Lenge- 
feld, and gained, after three years of love and 
faithfulness, a good and happy wife to gladden a 
poet's home. 

In a letter written at this time, Schiller ex- 
presses the truthful paradox, that the genius even 
of the poet is most truly free when botmcl, or, in 
other words, that he can wander most pleasantly 
through the fields and groves of imagination when 
he has a real, substantial and attractive home, to 
which he may, at any time, return. True ; as 
some literary monks can, sadly, bear witness. The 
heart cannot live upon dreams. After all that 
has been said of the ideal, the real is necessary 
for man's happiness, Indeed, there is only one 
good thing in all the world, and that is a reason- 
able, happy life, where all the good faculties of the 
man are unfolded and proportionately exercised. 
Devotion, philosophy, science, poetry, are good, as 
they serve to expand, elevate and complete such a 
happy, human life ; but man is not a cherub, and, 
therefore, cannot find his full employment in 
meditative devotion ; he is not a pure intellect, 
and, therefore, cannot find his whole life in 
thought ; he is not a mere creature of imagination, 
and, therefore, cannot find his complete self in the 
world of poetry ; whatever may be the chief object 
of his devotion, he remains a man and can find 
happiness in nothing that does not include the 
primal duties and privileges of a man. So the 
bird (with a true utilitarian philosophy) sees in 
the whole universe a world made for birds, a sky 
to fly in, a sun to be hailed with songs, green 
boughs to nestle under and storms that ruffle 
feathers, and must, therefore, be avoided. Happy 
is the poet, the man of science and the artist, who 
has the wisdom of the bird and remembers that 
man was not made to sacrifice himself to any 
object, however splendid ; but that science, art 
and poetry were made for man, and should be 
regarded only as parts of his whole life. But 
what led us into all this moralising? Schiller's 
marriage. It was a happy one ; let his own words 
tell :— 

" The world again clothes itself around me in 
poetic forms ; old feelings are again awakening in 
my breast. I think my very youth will be renewed." 

Only one circumstance seemed to threaten this 
happiness, and that was the failure of the poet's 
health. 

There was a discord in Schiller's existence, 
which would resolve itself only in the grave. He 
expresses his feeling of this when he exclaims, 
" Miserable man ! with thoughts and hopes soar- 
ing in the heavens, yet tied down to this earth- 
clod, this tiresome clock-work of the body !" This 
is not a healthful feeling : happy are those who 
know it not ; but we must seek for such favoured 
characters, — 

"Fortunati nimium sua si bona norint," — , 

rather among the stout peasantry of Altenburg 



than among literary men. Perhaps a great part 
of the difference between Goethe and Schiller 
might be explained by the happier physical tem- 
perament of the former, whose literary studies 
were generally so controlled as to harmonise with 
good health. His life, upon the whole, was like a 
long, calm summer's day ; Schiller's was vexed 
with the clouds, storms and showers of this mate- 
rial world. In one of his letters to Goethe, he 
thus expresses himself, — " And now, when I have 
attained, as I believe, to such a degree of intellec- 
tual clearness, and have established in my mind 
such principles of art, that if I might be spared, 
I could, perhaps, do something great and good, 
my bodily constitution is threatened with decay ; 
well, if it must be so, if the house must faU in 
ruins, I have rescued from its fall all that is worth 
saving." 

Soon after his marriage, the disease that had 
frequently threatened him prostrated his strength. 
He was dangerously ill, and the report of his death 
was spread abroad. This circumstance gave rise 
to one of the most pleasing incidents in the life of 
the poet, which we may relate in the words of Sir 
Edward Bulwer Lytton : — " A report of Schiller's 
death had reached Denmark, at the moment when 
a princely circle of the poet's admirers had re- 
solved to repair to Hellebeck, near Copenhagen, 
and, amidst its sublime and enchanting scenery, to 
hold a court in his honour, and chaunt his ' Hymn 
to Joy.' Amongst these were the Danish poet, Bag- 
gesen ; the Count Ernest von Schimmelmann ; 
the Prince Christian von Holstein Augustenburg 
and his Princess. Their grief, as enthusiastic 
as their admiration, changed the meditated 
festivities into a funeral solemnity. They met at 
Hellebeck, on the shore of the sea, opposite the 
high rocks of Sweden, and Baggesen began to read 
the hymn. Clarionets, horns and flutes chimed in 
to the song of the chorus ; two additional stanzas, 
in honour of the supposed dead, were chaunted, 
and may be thus translated : — 

' Hail to a friend, O choir of friends ! 

The dead we love shall live once more ; 
Bright to the groves of heaven ascends 

His soul : our lives it hovers o'er. 

Chorus. 
Lift your attesting hands on high ; 

Swear by this wine from Lands made free*, 
Till found, once more, in yonder sky, 

Faith to our brother's memory." 

As the song ceased, all eyes wept. 

" Homage to the dead is a vulgar and idle tri- 
bute, if it come after neglect or injury to the living. 
The heart sickens at that mockery of admiration 
which allowed Spenser to die of a broken heart, 
and threw copies of verses into his grave, — which 
suffered political vengeance to reduce Dryden to a 
bookseller's drudge, and insisted on burying his 
dust in the sepulchre of kings. To Schiller's 
biographers belongs the pleasing task of comme- 
morating the only true homage ever rendered to a 
dead poet, simply because the poet was not dead : 
no sooner was the report confuted, than the noble 
mourners exulted to exchange ceremonial honours 

* i. e. French wine. 



SCHILLER. 



(13 



to the lifeless, for practical benefits to the living. 
A letter, from which we extract the purport, was 
sent to Schiller by the Prince von Augustenberg 
and Count Schimmelmann. 

" ' Two friends, united through the citizenship 
of the world, send this letter to you — noble man ! 
both are unknown to you — both love you and 
revere : they find in your recent works, the mind 
and the enthusiasm which knit the bond of their 
own friendship ; by the perusal of those works they 
accustom themselves to regard the author as a 
member of their own union. Great was their 
grief at the report of his death. The lively inte- 
rest with which you have inspired us must excuse 
us from the appearance of officious importunity : 
they tell us that your health suffers from too severe 
an application, and needs, for some time, an entire 
repose. This repose your pecuniary circumstances 
alone forbid you to enjoy. Will you grudge us the 
delight of contributing to your relief ? we entreat 
you to receive, for three years, an annual gift of a 
thousand dollars*.' " 

From the grateful letter, in which Schiller ac- 
knowledges and accepts the kindness of his foreign 
friends, we give the following passage : — 

"I win leisure, and through leisure I may, 
perhaps, recover my lost health ; if not, at least 
for the future, the trouble of my mind will not 
give nourishment to disease. If my lot does not 
permit me to confer beneficence in the same man- 
ner as my benefactors, at least, I will seek it, 
where alone it is in my power, and make that seed 
which they scatter unfold itself in me to a fairer 
blossom for humanity." 

Availing himself of the means of repose thus 
afforded, Schiller slowly advanced in convalescence. 
He visited Dresden, Heidelberg, and Heilbron, 
and was given to understand that he might, without 
any fear of the once dreaded Duke's displeasure, 
again tread his parental soil of Suabia. It may be 
thought, why should the poet fear to enter Suabia, 
any more than an English Liberal might dread a 
tour through Buckinghamshire ? — but, hi Schiller's 
day, the Grand Duke had something more than a 
nominal authority ; and there was a remembrance 
of poor, wild, Daniel Schubart, who, for writing 
irreverently of great people, had been kept in 
prison, by the Duke of Wiirtemberg, for the space 
of ten years ! 

Schiller had the happiness of meeting his parents 
and relatives. He went to reside at Ludwigsburg, 
near his father's house, and there prosecuted his 
studies for " WallensteinP He stood by the grave 
of the Grand Duke, who had once advised him to 
renounce the poet's vocation, and spoke charitably 
and honourably of the departed man. This was 
creditable both to the living and the dead. The 
Duke was no great judge of poetical matters, and 
had some queer crotchets in his head about educa- 
tion ; but he had some good points in his charac- 
ter, no doubt ; and, while we disregard a man 
when he pretends to that which he is not, we 
should honour him for that which he is. 

About this time, it appears, while resting from 
the exciting toil of poetical production, Schiller 
had wandered into Kant's philosophy, and was 
engaged in theorising on the principles of beauty 

* About 150Z. sterling ; a sum which, at Weimar, would 
go, perhaps, three times as far as it would in England. 



and sublimity revealed in poetry and the fine arts. 
These studies issued in the "Philosophical Let- 
ters " which show great refinement of thought and 
nobility of purpose, but are not likely to please the 
general English taste*. 

One of his most intimate friends, at Jena, was 
William von Humboldt, a metaphysician of Kant's 
school, in which the poet became an earnest student. 
The theories of Humboldt and the study of Kant, 
had an injurious influence upon the clearness and 
popular character of Schiller's poems ; for Hum- 
boldt had a perverse notion that the categories of the 
Konigsberg sage ought to rule in poetry as well as 
in prose. As Kant gave the ethical and philoso- 
phical purport to many of Schiller's poems which 
are scarcely intelligible without, at least, an ele- 
mentary knowledge of the philosophy from which 
they sprung, a very few words concerning the 
purport of this philosophy may not be out of place 
here. 

It was a system of intellectual scepticism and 
moral faith. It endeavoured to show that all the 
researches of the human mind must end in doubt 
concerning those ideas of God, immortality and a 
future state, which transcend experience. Kant 
attempted to prevent all farther discussions on 
such metaphysical topics, by showing the limits of 
human knowledge. He argued that there were cer- 
tain ideas which could never be intellectually 
demonstrated, and yet must be universally received 
as morally established. This he did in the following 
way. First he shows that our knowledge is derived 
from experience, and that the office of the under- 
standing is simply to form deductions from ex- 
perience : — but our experience is finite ; conse- 
quently we cannot infer from it the existence of that 
which is infinite or immortal. Are we to rest in 
this confession of ignorance ? No : — here comes 
in the moral argument to supply the defects of the 
intellectual. This also is founded on experience — 
on internal experience. Our conscience assures us 
of certain- moral truths ; of such, for instance, as 
that virtue ought to be rewarded, and that vice 
ought to be punished. Now these truths require, 
to complete them, the ideas of God, Immortality 
and Future Justice. Consequently, for the sake 
of morality, we are compelled to admit ideas which 
cannot be intellectually demonstrated. Here, Kant 
argued, we ought to rest satisfied, assured 
of the truth of doctrines by their moral use. 
Though Kant's argument has been enveloped in a 
great cloud of words, it is, by no means, unintelli- 
gible ; but rather is, perhaps, that which has the 
greatest weight with the minds of men in general. 

Many of Schiller's occasional poems contain the 
results of his philosophical speculations and one 
we may notice particularly, entitled " The Ideal 
and the Actual Life" which was exactly to the 
taste of Humboldt, but which is so abstruse as to 
require a commentary for readers unacquainted 
with the sesthetical theory upon which it is founded. 

The poet, at last, found that his course of 
reflective study was likely to injure his creative 
imagination. He writes to Goethe — " It is time 
for me to close the Philosophy-Shop." 

* We may refer the reader who would be acquainted 
with Schiller's prose-writings to the translation of his 
" Philosophical Letters " by J. Weiss, published by Chap- 
man, London. 



64 



SCHILLER. 



Escaping from the abstractions of Kant's 
philosophy, he again devoted himself, with zeal, to 
more genial studies. He built for himself a little 
summer-house in a garden overlooking the valley 
of the Saale, where he yielded himself to the 
luxury of poetic creation, chiefly during the silence 
of night. To sustain his enthusiasm, he had 
recourse to the excitement of wine, injurious to a 
man of fervid poetical temperament in a degree 
not to be imagined by men of duller feelings. 
Such refreshments make the lamp of life flare away 
rapidly, and even the temporary lustre they seem 
to give is of a delusive nature. Goethe, if we 
remember well, remarks that the questionable 
inspiration of wine may be tasted in some of 
Schiller's productions at this period. Doering 
(one of our poet's biographers) tells us he had 
strong coffee or wine-chocolate, but more frequently 
a flask of old Rhenish, or Champagne, standing by 
his writing-desk. Often his neighbours heard him 
earnestly declaiming in the silence of the night ; 
and some, who could easily overlook his chamber, 
from the height opposite his little garden-house, 
on the other side of the dell, might see him, now 
speaking loudly and pacing nastily to-and-fro in his 
chamber, then suddenly throwing himself down into 
his chair and writing — now and then drinking from 
the glass beside his desk. In winter he was at his 
desk until four or even five o'clock in the morning ; 
in summer until towards three." 

High, doubtless, was the poetic excitement and 
enjoyment of these nights ; but such delights are 
costly, draining the springs of life. 

The quiet morning- walk ; the stroll by some 
still river, at eve, when the stars are coming out 
over the darkening woods; the sober meal with 
such a family-party as poor Cowper loved to join ; — 
these are the true refreshments of the literary 
man. It seems that nature, when she bestows upon 
a mortal, in a high degree, the capacity for ideal 
pleasures, seals up many of the springs of lower 
enjoyment. And yet the life of the artist, in poetry, 
painting or music, with its high excitements and 
attendant fits of weariness and depression, peculiarly 
exposes him to the temptation of seeking refresh- 
ment in delusive sources. 

It may be well questioned whether an existence 
devoted chiefly to writing is exactly a normal one 
for any man. That certain men are born to live 
chiefly intellectually and to influence their fellow- 
men by the power of genius, is as certain as that 
others must be "hewers of wood and drawers of 
water ;" but it does not follow that all men of 
genius must use no instrument save the pen, or 
incessantly bend over the desk : — there will surely 
be discovered some suitable stations in society for 
such men, when we withdraw our attention from 
all the idle matters about which we have been 
fruitlessly contending for centuries, and begin to 
attend to the proper business of mankind — to 
know themselves and how to honour and help each 
other. 

But, to return from moralising to our theme — 
Humboldt left Jena, and Schiller's poetry revived 
under the influences of Goethe's friendly criticism. 
' ' Wallenstein " was not written currente calamo: — 
it was a hard and long study for the poet. For 
instance, he even read the works of the Cabalists 
that his hero's astrological superstitions might be 
correctly represented. In January (1799) the 



first part of Wallenstein was given at Weimar and 
was soon followed, in April, by the second part ; 
and now at the age of forty, Schiller found his long 
labours rewarded by the unanimous applause of 
both the critics and the public. Germany hailed 
him as her Poet. 

Of this drama of " Wallenstein " we need say 
nothing more, as it is one of the very few poems 
which have been so well translated that it matters 
little whether it is read in English or in German. 

Soon after the publication of " Wallenstein," the 
Duke of Weimar gave our poet a pension of 1000 
dollars. But prosperity could not lull genius into 
indolence. Suggestions of new works called for 
fulfilment. The flower must open, the tree must 
grow to maturity, though, in so doing, it also hastens 
to decay. From 1799 to 1801, Schiller produced 
his dramas, " Maria Stuart," the "Maid of Orleans," 
the " Bride of Messina," and his fine ode " the 
Song of the Bell." He again visited the Korners 
at Dresden and thence journeyed to Leipsic where 
he was in the theatre at the performance of the 
" Maid of Orleans," and, when the curtain fell, the 
audience shouted aloud "Long live Frederick 
Schiller ! " « The Maid of Orleans " deserved this 
hearty welcome. It is a beautiful romantic drama, 
on a theme well suited to call up Schiller's genius. 
He has, for ever, rescued Jeanne of Arc from the 
cold sneers of Voltaire's Pucelle. The German un- 
derstood what the Frenchman had not heart enough 
to believe, that deep feelings of oppression and ardent 
longings for liberty may, at last, claim the autho- 
rity of inspiration without any intentional fraud, 
and that all enthusiasm is not fanaticism. The least 
happy part of the drama, perhaps, is where the heroic 
maid so suddenly breaks her faith with Heaven 
by fixing her affections on an Englishman. 

Honours and encouragements now flowed in 
plentifully. The poet received from the Emperor 
of Austria a patent of nobility, which he accepted 
and bore modestly. We cannot imagine that he 
set any great value upon it. We wish to see the 
day when every species of merit shall be rewarded 
in its own proper way; when the man who has 
industriously laboured for wealth shall be paid in 
hard cash, when the aspirant for titles shall have 
them, and when the eminent literary man shall 
be rewarded with a place in the social system 
where he may exercise his elevating influence upon 
his fellow-men, so that his rising shall be an exalta- 
tion of the class to which he belongs. 

To return to Schiller — he had now produced his 
noblest work ; but, no doubt, at a considerable 
expense of physical vigour. Very soon after the 
completion of " Wallenstein" he was advised by 
his physicians to reside, at least during the winter 
months, at Weimar, to avoid the bleak air of Jena. 
Here he enjoyed the friendship of Goethe, and some- 
times passed with him many weeks at Jena in the 
summer. At Weimar he was earnestly engaged in 
promoting the interests of the theatre, which he 
regarded in a point of view, which, as Englishmen, 
we can hardly appreciate. He wished to impress 
upon it a high moral and didactic character — to 
make it indeed what it was among the people for 
whom Sophocles wrote, a religious institution. 
Schiller, when a boy, had longed to become a 
preacher, and, throughout his life, he was faithful 
to this early instinct, and desired, as doubtless 
many literary men have done, to perform his work 



SCHILLER. 



05 



as a teacher of his fellow-men by the help of some 
instrument more immediately powerful than the 
pen and the press. This instrument he imagined 
he had found in the theatre. Whether such a 
notion was altogether visionary in principle we shall 
not here inquire : in modern practice, it is cer- 
tainly opposed by no slight difficulties. 

One of Schiller's latest designs was remarkable, 
as it anticipated a school of literature of which 
there were only a few symptoms at the close of 
Goethe's era, but which has since become one of 
the striking features of our times in the writings of 
Eugene Sue, Balzac, Charles Dickens, and a crowd of 
followers. Schiller meditated a drama embracing no 
less a subject than that of the French Police with its 
strange and startling discoveries of the crimes and 
miseries which lurk in the back streets of our modern 
civilisation — miseries, by the bye, which will never 
be removed until we discover and confess how 
closely they are united with many of the specious 
respectabilities of modern society. 

We do not regret that the poet never fulfilled 
this design : his proper work lay in another de- 
partment. If it is the task of some writers to reveal 
to us all the miseries of actual human life and 
society, others are required to keep before our 
view that brighter vision of humanity which re- 
mains among the things that are possible : perhaps 
a third class of writers may arise to teach us how 
this possibility may be realised. Such writers we 
long to see. The age is calling for them ; not 
for merely contemplative moralists, who will say 
grand, vague things about mankind, like Words- 
worth ; but for writers who will say definite and 
practical things, mid mean what they say. 

The last-written of Schiller's dramas was 
" William Tell" Of this Sir E. B. Lytton truly 
observes — " in that mysterious circle in which the 
life of genius so frequently appears to move, 
Schiller, nearing the close of his career, returned 
to the inspirations with which it had commenced. 
His first rude drama had burned with the wild 
and half-delirious fever of liberty;— liberty, purified 
and made rational, gave theme and substance to 
his last. The euthanasia of the genius which 
had composed l The Robbers ' was the ' William 
Tell.'' " This is true. If Goethe had a fixed idea, 
it was that of order and harmony, whether in a 
democracy or a monarchy. Schiller's chief passion 
was for liberty, at first, material, afterwards, in- 
tellectual and moral. The former he discovered 
to be a gross mistake, an impossibility ; the latter 
he loved to his last breath. 

With the presentation-copy of " William Tell " 
sent to the Arch-Chancellor Von Dalberg, Schiller 
inclosed these verses : — 

In that fell strife, when force with force engages, 
And Wrath stirs bloodshed — Wrath with blindfold 

eyes — 
When, 'midst the war which raving faction wages, 
Lost in the roar, the voice of Justice dies, 
When but for license, Sin, the shameless, rages, 
Against the holy when the wilful rise, 
When lost the anchor which makes nations strong 
Amidst the storm — there is no theme for song. 

] But when a race, tending by vale and hill 

Free flocks, contented with its rude domain 

Bursts the hard bondage with its own great will, 
Lets fall the sword when once it rends the chain, 



And, flush'd with victory, can be human still — 
There blest the strife, and then inspired the strain. 
Such is my theme — to thee, not strange, 'tis true, 
Thou in the qreat canst never find the new. 



In the spring of 1804, after a visit to Berb'n, 
our poet suffered from a severe attack of his con- 
stitutional malady, from which he only faintly 
rallied ; and, about a year afterwards, the disease 
returned with fatal power. On the 28th of April, 
1805, he was seized with fever, and lay for about a 
week, still cherishing hopes of life. On the 6th of 
May he fell into delirium. On the 7th he seemed 
restored to self-possession, and began to converse 
with his sister-in-law on " the nature of tragedy." 
Fearing the excitement of his ruling passion, she 
exhorted him to be quiet. " True," he replied, "now, 
when no one understands me, and I no more under- 
stand myself, it is better that I should be silent." 

At the beginning of this illness he had regretted 
the interruption it must occasion to his projected 
tragedy of "Demetrius" Now, on the night of 
the 7th, his servant, watching by his bed, heard 
him reciting several lines from the drama upon 
which his mind was still engaged. In the morning, 
he called for his infant daughter, gazed upon her 
face, kissed her, and wept bitterly. In the evening 
of the same day, when his sister-in-law asked him 
how he felt, he answered, " Calmer and calmer." 
Then he longed to behold, once more, the setting 
sun ; they drew aside the curtains and he looked, 
for the last time, with a poet's sympathy, on the 
great light. As after a cloudy afternoon there 
comes, sometimes, a short season of splendour, 
just before sunset ; so it seemed, on Schiller's 
death-bed, that the character of the man, the 
father and the poet, was allowed to shine out for a 
few moments between the clouds of delirium and 
the darkness of death. The next day he was ex- 
hausted and speechless, and, in the evening, he 
breathed his last. 

Goethe was ill at the time of his friend's depar- 
ture, and none dare tell the news. He observed 
the embarrassment of his friends and servants, and 
feared to demand the whole truth. The members 
of his household heard their master, so remarkable 
for his control of feeling, secretly weeping. On 
the next morning he asked, " Was not Schiller 
very ill yesterday?" The truth was confessed. 
" He is dead !" said Goethe, and covered his eyes 
with his hands. 

So died Frederick Schiller, aged 45 years. His 
life was short ; but it was a life, not a sleep. He 
had devoted himself to a great object, to win a 
high place among the poets and intellectual heroes 
of his country ; he used the means of attaining 
this end ; he studied long and felt deeply, esteem- 
ing his vocation more than his earthly life — and 
he gained his object — he was crowned with more 
than the admiration, with the love of his people, 
and died as he touched the goal. 

In the night of the 11th of May the poet's mor- 
tal remains were carried to the grave by twelve 
young men of the city ; but " several young artists 
and students," says Doering, "out of reverence 
for the dead," claimed a share in the ceremony. 
The moon broke from the clouds and shone brightly 
on the coffin as it was placed upon the bier by the 
grave. 

We add a few concluding words on the charac- 



00 



SCHILLER. 



teristics of Schiller as a man and a poet. As a 
man he was a German ; but, while his defects 
seemed to be those common to his nation, his 
excellences were, in a remarkable degree, his own. 
Of course, some traces of vagueness, mysticism and 
too-great refinement of ideas may be found in 
Schiller; but upon the whole, there is found a 
tone of sobriety and good sense moderating his 
enthusiasm, and constantly keeping him faithful 
to truth even while in the world of imagination. 
As a proof of this, we may observe that there is no 
German poet whose works are, on the whole, so 
satisfactory to English readers as those of Schiller ; 
for we take it for granted that in good taste the 
well-educated class of English readers are far in 
advance of their German neighbours. There is a 
fault (one very great and wide-spreading hi Ger- 
man literature) of high-soaring speculations and 
imaginations, attended by an unsoundness and 
unreality which is especially displeasing to us. It 
would require an essay to expose fully the nature 
of this fallacy ; but we must leave it for German 
professors to do when they become sober and prac- 
tical. Schiller is not entirely free from this fault 
in his imaginative and philosophical writings ; but 
he seldom carries it to the extreme point which it 
reaches in the productions of weaker minds. 

There are many writers, both in prose and verse, 
in Germany, who will reiterate to tiresomeness 
many lofty sayings about the divinity of human 
nature; but who will never carry into practice one 
sober plan of improvement to elevate the real 
condition of the people around them. Humanity 
has been deified in the metaphysical schools and 
degraded in the practical sphere of life. Wondrous 
things have been done for the people by the 
philosophers : heaven has been brought down to 
earth ; — men have been made a little higher than 
the angels ; — women have been sainted ; — children 
have been represented as cherubs playing in an 
unfading Paradise of flowers ; and, in short, 
Arcadia, the Golden Age and Utopia, all have 
been discovered : — but all this great work has 
been done in the clouds, or, speaking literally, it is 
all confined to the chairs of philosophy in the 
Universities. It is the total want of all sober and 
practical meaning which makes many fine senti- 
mental, philosophical and imaginative productions 
in German literature distasteful to us. 

But all this applies only in a very slight degree 
to Schiller, and, consequently, must be regarded as 
a digression. 

Schiller was an interesting man, a philosopher, a 
historian, a novelist, and a critic, as well as a poet. 
He has been generally spoken of in a collective 
way, and seldom criticised distinctly as a poet. 
The fight of his mind in all its other departments 
has been thrown upon his poetry. For this reason, 
perhaps, if we take his poems under examination 
strictly by themselves and judge them as poems, 
we find them falling under the general estimate 
of Schiller's genius, and deficient in simplicity, gra- 
phic clearness and variety of life. Mr. Carlyle 
has remarked that the general lustre of Schiller's 
genius prevents us from admiring some of his 
particular beauties. We must say, on the other hand, 
that the general character of the author has shed a 
lustre upon his poetical works which must, in some 
degree, fade when we strictly look upon them as works 
of their kind. Are his dramas, laying aside their 



morality, their poetic beauties and good sentiments, 
good as dramatic compositions ? Are his lyrics pure, 
simple and clear, as lyrical poetry should be? These 
are the questions that must be asked and answered 
in order to form a true estimate of Schiller as a poet. 

Our modern times are, in some degree, unfavour- 
able to that distinctness which is necessary for the 
perfection of any art. The spheres of social and 
religious life are unsettled, and tempt the poet to 
interfere. Schiller's era was the birth-time of new 
systems of philosophy in Germany, and the " rea- 
sonings of the schools " often mingled themselves 
with his poetical productions in a way detrimental 
to the purity of his poetry. As all the provinces of 
human thought are distinct as the stars, so, like the 
stars, they interfuse their rays and each shines in 
the lustre of all the others. Thus a settled political 
state would mirror itself in the poetry of the times, 
and the clear light of a simple and catholic religion 
would illumine every department of human life 
and science, as the sky brightens the face of the 
sea. Now, in Schiller's day, as in our own, poli- 
tics, philosophy, and religious belief were all un- 
settled and vexed with many questions, which 
tempted a mind of wide sympathies to interfere. 
This might be favourable to the completion of the 
man's character ; but it often marred the artistic 
worth of his productions as a poet. The statuary 
who runs often from his marble block to read the 
newspapers, is not likely to rival Praxiteles : his 
soul must be absorbed in his art, like Words- 
worth's famous boy, " rapt " in the vision of a 
glorious sunrise. 

As Sir Bulwer Lytton observes, if we would 
form a fair estimate of Schiller's genius, we should 
consider the time when he wrote. What was our 
poetical literature at that time ? When u Wallen- 
stein " was written, we were only slowly escaping 
from a cold, conceited, and thoroughly artificial 
poetry, and Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey 
were only known as eccentric young men who had 
written a few sonnets and " lyrical ballads " in a 
childish style. 

As we have not space for any fair extracts from 
Schiller's dramas, and as nothing can be more un- 
profitable than the mere dry skeletons of such 
poems, we must pass by them with a few brief and 
general remarks. If we consider them strictly as 
dramas, we shall find them too sentimental and 
didactic. Schiller entertained a lofty view of the 
purpose of a dramatic writer, but this purpose he 
has brought forward in a style somewhat injurious 
to the dramatic reality and interest of his produc- 
tions. He sometimes falls into the error of preach- 
ing on the stage. 

It is one of the most frequent faults of German 
poetry, to exaggerate a sentiment, to yield the 
mind too far to its influence — in short, to make 
too much of it. This is especially a defect in 
dramatic writing, and Schiller's dramas are injured 
by it, chiefly in his love-passages. Platen notices 
the fault in his epigram addressed to Schiller. 

"A little less of love, my friend! — yet then you would 
not please 

The public so delighted with Max and Thecla's story : 

But one point is too strong for me — the Maiden of 
Orleans 

Where with Lionel she falls in love, with strange pre- 
cipitation!" 



SCHILLER. 



67 



In describing characters, Schiller is more dis- 
posed to give the consistency and harmony which 
belong to the ideal than to detail the irregularities 
and eccentricities which are found in the real. 
He makes a man, whether good or bad, all of 
one piece : hence his moral heroes soar as high 
above human nature as his traitors and villains 
fall below it. 

We shall not attempt a dry criticism of Schil- 
ler's dramas ; but must be contented Avith saying 
to those who would be acquainted with them, — 
read them. If you would see their merits, read 
them in the light of a comparison with modern 
dramas ; if you would see their defects read them 
after reading Shakespeare. 

In wit, especially in everything like sharp cut- 
ting irony, it is well known that our German 
friends are so inferior to our own writers, that 
they can hardly understand and appreciate our 
best productions of this kind. Schiller's earnest 
mind allowed but little freedom to the faculties of 
wit and humour which he possessed ; but Mr. 
Carlyle certainly goes too far, when he ascribes to 
Schiller a " total deficiency " of humour. Sir 
E. B. Lytton has corrected this mistake, in a note 
to his translation of the " Celebrated Woman," 
from which we give a few lines : — 

" 0, wherefore art thou flown so soon, 

Thou first fair year — Love's Honeymoon ! 

Ah, Dream too exquisite for life ! 

Home's goddess — in the name of wife ! 

Reared by each Grace — yet but to he 

Man's Household Anadyomene ! 

With mind from which the sunbeams fall, 

Rejoicing while pervading all; 

Frank in the temper pleased to please-— 

Soft in the feeling waked with ease. 

So broke, as Native of the skies, 

The Heart-enthraller on my eyes ; 

So saw I, like a Morn of May, 

The playmate given to glad my way ; 

With eyes that more than lips bespoke, 

Eyes whence — sweet words — ' I love thee ! ' broke ! 

So — Ah, what transports then were mine ! 

I led the Bride before the shrine ! 

And saw the future years reveal'd, 

Glass'd on my Hope — one blooming field ! 

More wide, and widening more, were given 

The angel-gates disclosing Heaven ; 

Round us the lovely, mirthful troop 

Of children came — yet still to me 
The loveliest — merriest of the group 

The happy mother seemed to be ! 
Mine, by the bonds that bind us more 
Than all the oaths the Priest before ; 
Mine, by the concord of content, 
When Heart with Heart is music-blent ; 
When, as sweet sounds in unison, 
Two lives harmonious melt in one ! 
When — sudden (O the villain !) — came 

Upon the scene a Mind Profound !— 
A Bel Esprit, who whisper'd ' Fame,' 

And shook my card-house to the ground. 

" What have I now instead of all 
The Eden lost of hearth and hall ? 
What comforts for the Heaven bereft ? 
What of the younger Angel's left ? 



A sort of intellectual Mule, 

Man's stubborn mind in Woman's shape, 
Too hard to love, too frail to rule — 

A sage engrafted on an ape ! 
To what she calls the Realm of Mind, 

She leaves that throne, her sex, to crawl, 
The cestus and the charm resign' d — 

A public gaping-show to all ! 
She blots from Beauty's Golden Book* 

A name 'mid Nature's choicest Few, 
To gain the glory of a nook 

In Doctor Dunderhead's Review." 



Of wit we cannot extract any very pungent 
morsels from Schiller's writings. The following 
epigrams may serve as specimens. 



THE MORAL POET. 

[This is an epigram on Lavater's work, called " Pontius 
Pilatus, oder der Mensch in alien Gestalten," &c. — 

HOFFMEISTER.] 

" How poor a thing is man ! " alas ! 'tis true — 
I 'd half forgot it — when I chanced on you ! 



THE SUBLIME THEME. 

[Also on Lavater.] 
How God compassionates Mankind, thy muse 

friend, rehearses — 
Compassion for the sins of Man !■ 

thy verses ! 



my 
What comfort for 



SCIENCE. 

To some she is the Goddess great, to some the milch- 
cow of the field ; 

Their care is but to calculate — what butter she will 
yield. 



KANT AND HIS COMMENTATORS. 

How many starvelings one rich man can nourish ! 
When monarchs build, the rubbish-carriers flourish. 

There were some interesting points in Schiller's 
character, in which he was in advance of the times 
in which he lived. This is true of the idea he held 
respecting the vocation of literature, and especially 
of poetry, in its relation to human life. He did 
not work out this idea ; for what single hand 
could clo that? but he held it more clearly than 
his friend Goethe expounded it. He foresaw that 
the day would come when men would inquire into 
the purpose of a poet's writings. This day has 
certainly arrived ; for we have now " lectures 
addressed to the working classes," inviting them 
to inquire into what the poets have done for them.-f 
In this new tendency of literature we are far in 
advance of the Germans ; and our poetical writers 
will bear examination, in Mr. Fox's point of view, 
better than those of any other people ; but when 

* The Golden Book.— So was entitled in some Italian 
States (Venice especially) the Catalogue in which the 
Noble Families were enrolled. 

t See Fox's Lectures to the Working Classes. Lecture 
on Wordsworth. 

f2 



68 



SCHILLER. 



we remember Schiller's times, and the style of 
poetry current among us then, we shall be inclined 
to allow great merit to the poems which he has 
devoted to one of his most favourite themes, the 
progress of society, and especially to the " Song 
of the Bell" as the type of an order of poems 
which may be carried out nobly by some bard 
who is yet to be born. 

Schiller's poems may be divided into three 
classes: — 1. Sentimental and Didactic Pieces. 

2. Poems of a Graphic and Historical character. 

3. Poems celebrating the Progress of Society. 

Of the first class of poems we may say little : 
the sentimental effusions of Schiller's early life are 
disfigured by extravagance and bad taste. In his 
didactic poems we think the writer made a mis- 
take, though he esteemed one of them, " The 
Artists," as among his best compositions. We 
have no contempt for philosophy ; but, on taking 
up a poem, we do not expect to meet a treatise on 
the fine arts. Here the poet teaches us that Art 
is peculiarly man's domain, and that the study and 
love of the beautiful is one of the chief means of 
attaining the good, the true, and the useful. One 
of the writer's purposes in this elegant essay, was 
to refute a low notion of utility, as being opposed 
to the love of Beauty, and the cultivation of the 
fine arts. It requires no great penetration to see 
that, if human elevation and happiness is the end 
to which the useful is devoted, then the fine arts 
are to be ranked among the most immediately and 
certainly useful of human pursuits. There are 
some beautiful and highly-refined ideas in this 
essay, clothed in finely-chosen language. Thus the 
poet addresses his brother-artists : — 

" Ye are the Imitators, ye the great 
Disciples of the Mighty Artist — who 
Zoned with sweet grace the iron form of Fate — 
Gave Heaven its starry lights and tender blue — 
Whose terror more ennobles than alarms 
(Its awe exalts us, and its grandeur cbarms) — 
AVho, ev"n destroying, while he scathes, illumes, 
And clothes with pomp the anger that consumes. 

As o'er some brook that glides its lucid way 
The dancing shores in various shadow play, 
As the smooth wave a faithful mirror yields 
To Eve's soft blush, and flower-enamell'd fields; 
So, on life's stream, that niggard steals along, 
Shimmers the lively Shadow- World of Song. 

Ye, to the Dread Unknown — the dismal goal 
Where the stern Fates await the trembling soul — 
Ye lead us on, by paths for ever gay, 
And robed with joy as for a marriage-day ; 
And as in graceful urns your genius decks 
Our very bones, and beautifies the wrecks : 
So with appearances divinely fair, 
Ye veil the trouble and adorn the care. 
Search where I will the ages that have roll'd, 
The unmeasured Past, Earth's immemorial lore, 
How smil'd Humanity, where ye consoled, 
How smileless mourn' d Humanity before ! " 

We cannot follow the argument, which traces 
the ideas of goodness, truth and beauty to one 
fountain, and describes them as all tending to one 
centre ; but we may give the closing lines, in 
which this truth is well illustrated, in an image 
borrowed from science : — 



" Truth, when the Age she would reform, expels ; 
Flies for safe refuge to the Muse's cells. 
More fearful for the veil of charms she takes, 
From Song the fulness of her splendour breaks, 
And o'er the Foe that persecutes and quails 
Her vengeance thunders, as the Bard prevails ! 

" Rise, ye free Sons of the Free Mother, rise, 
Still on the Light of Beauty, sun your eyes, 
Still to the heights that shine afar, aspire, 
Nor meaner meeds than those she gives, desire. 
If here the Sister Art forsake a while, 
Elude the clasp, and vanish from the toil, 
Go seek and find her at the Mothers heart — 
Go search for Nature — and arrive at Art ! 
Ever the Perfect dwells in whatsoe'er 
Fair souls conceive and recognise as fair ! 
Borne on your daring pinions soar sublime 
Above the shoal and eddy of the Time. 
Far-glimmering on your wizard ruirror, see 
The silent shadow of the Age to be. 
Thro' all Life's thousand-fold entangled maze, 
One godlike bourne your gifted sight surveys — 
Thro' countless means one solemn end, foreshown, 
The labyrinth closes at a single Throne. 

As in seven tints of variegated light 
Breaks the lone shimmer of the lucid white ; 
As the seven tints that paint the Iris bow 
Into the lucid white dissolving flow — 
So truth in many-coloured splendour plays, — 
Now on the eye enchanted with the rays — 
Now in one lustre gathers every beam, 
And floods the World with light — a single Stream !"* 

The poem entitled " The Walk " is of a de- 
scriptive and meditative character, and subject, as 
a poem, to the same objection which has been 
made to the "Artists." Here the poet strays 
into the fields, and exults in the gladness and 
liberty of nature : — 

" Hail, mine own hill — ye bright'ning hill-tops, hail ! 
Hail, sun, that gild'st them with thy looks of love ! 
Sweet fields ! — ye lindens, murmuring to the gale ! 
And ye gay choristers the boughs above ! 
And thou, the Blue Immeasurable Calm, 
O'er mount and forest, motionless and bright, — 
Thine airs breathe through me their reviving balm 
And the heart strengthens as it drinks thy light ! 
Thou gracious Heaven ! man's prison-home I flee — 
Loosed from the babbling world, my soul leaps up to 
thee! 

" Flowers of all hue are struggling into glow, 

Along the blooming fields ; yet their sweet strife 

Melts into one harmonious concord. Lo, 

The path allures me through the pastoral green, 

And the wide world of fields ! — the labouring bee 

Hums round me ; and on hesitating wing 

O'er beds of purple clover quiveringly 

Hovers the butterfly. — Save these, all life 

Sleeps in the glowing sunlight's steady sheen — 

Ev'n from the west, no breeze the lull'd airs bring. 

Hark — in the calm aloft, I hear the sky-lark sing ! " 



* There is exquisite skill in concluding the Poem (after 
insisting so eloquently upon the maxim, that whatever 
Science discovers, only adds to the stores, or serves the 
purpose of Art) with an image borrowed from Science. 



SCHILLER. 



69 



Now he falls into a mood of pleasant meditation, 
on the old Arcadian pastoral life, which belonged 
to the early race of mankind in the Golden Age 
— i. e. the age before gold was discovered to be a 
deity. But soon a glimpse of a neighbouring 
town calls the poet's mind to social life and civili- 
sation, with all its triumphs, and its splendid 
miseries. Then he is led to muse on the invention 
of printing and the French Revolution : — 

" Now shape and voice — the immaterial Thought 
Takes from th' Invented speaking page sublime, 
The Ark which Mind has for its refuge wrought, 
Its floating Archive down the floods of Time ! 
Rent from the startled gaze the veil of Night, 
O'er old delusions streams the dawning light : — 
Man breaks his bonds — ah, blest could he refrain, 
Free from the curb, to scorn alike the rein ! 
' Freedom ! ' shouts Reason, ' Freedom ! ' wild 

Desire — 
And light to Wisdom is to Passion fire. 
From Nature's check bursts forth one hurtling swarm — 
Ah, snaps the anchor as descends the storm ! 
The sea runs mountains — vanishes the shore, 
The mastless wreck drifts endless ocean o'er ; 
Lost, — Faith — man's polar Star ! — nought seems to 

rest, 
The Heart's God, Conscience, darkens from the 

breast — " 

The poet now returns from his reflections on 
the progress of human society, and concludes by 
hailing the immortal scenes of nature as the 
sources of man's best and most enduring plea- 
sures : — 

" But where am I — and whither would I stray ? 
The path is lost — the cloud-capt mountain-dome, 
The rent abysses, to the dizzy sense, 
Behind, before me ! Far and far away, 
Garden and hedgerow, the sweet Company 
Of Fields, familiar speaking of man's home — 
Yea, every trace of man — lie hidden from the eye. 
Only the raw eternal Matter, whence 
Life buds, towers round me — the grey basalt-stone, 
Virgin of human art, stands motionless and lone. 
Roaringly, through the rocky cleft, and under 
Gnarl'd roots of trees, the torrent sweeps in thunder — 
Savage the scene, and desolate and bare — 
Lo ! where the eagle, his calm wings unfurl 1 d, 
Lone-halting in the solitary air, 
Knits* to the vault of heaven this ball — the world ! 
No plumed wind bears o'er the Daedal soil 
One breath of man's desire, and care, and toil. 
Am I indeed alone, amidst thy charms, 

Nature — clasped once more within thine arms ? — 

1 dreamed — and wake upon thy heart ! — escaped 
From the dark phantoms which my Fancy shaped ; 
And sinks each shape of human strife and woe 
Down with the vapours to the vale below ! 

" Purer I take my life from thy pure shrine, 
Sweet Nature ! — gladlier comes again to me 
The heart and hope of my lost youth divine ! 
Both end and means, eternally our will 
Varies and changes, and our acts are still 



* Knits — Knwpft- What a sublime image is conveyed 
in that single word ! 



The repetitions, multiplied and stale, 
Of what have been before us. But with Thee 
One ancient law, that will not wane or fail, 
Keeps beauty vernal in the bloom of truth ! 
Ever the same, thou hoardest for the man 
What to thy hands the infant or the youth 
Trusted familiar ; and since Time began, 
Thy breasts have nurtured, with impartial love, 
The many-changing ages ! 

Look above, 
Around, below ; — beneath the self-same blue, 
Over the self-same green, eternally, 
(Let man's slight changes wither as they will,) 
All races which the wide world ever knew, 
United, wander brother-like ! — Ah ! see, 
The sun of Homer smiles upon us still!" 

It will be seen that this poem is written in the 
style of Cowper's " TaskP But we leave the 
didactic productions of Schiller, and turn to his 
graphic and narrative ballads, in which he shows 
himself more clearly as a poet. He gave to the 
ballad a higher flight, a wider scope, and a deeper 
purpose than it had known before ; but even in 
this form of writing he was tempted to be didactic, 
and almost every one of his ballads carries some 
moral purpose.* 

THE DIVER, A BALLAD. 

[The original of the story on which Schiller has founded 
this ballad, matchless perhaps for the power and grandeur 
of its descriptions, is to be found in Kircher. According 
to the true principles of imitative art, Schiller has pre- 
served all that is striking in the legend, and ennobled all 
that is commonplace. The name of the Diver was Nicholas, 
surnamed the Fish. The King appears, according to 
Hoffmeister's probable conjectures, to have been either 
Frederic I. or Frederic II., of Sicily. Date from 1295 to 
1377-] 

" Oh, where is the knight or the squire so bold, 
As to dive to the howling charybdis below ? — 

I cast in the whirlpool a goblet of gold, 
And o'er it already the dark waters flow ; 

Whoever to me may the goblet bring, 

Shall have for his guerdon that gift of his king." 

He spoke, and the cup from the terrible steep, 
That, rugged and hoary, hung over the verge 

Of the endless and measureless world of the deep, 
Swirl'd into the maelstrom that maddened the surge, 

" And where is the diver so stout to go— 

I ask ye again — to the deep below? " 

And the knights and the squires that gather'd around, 
Stood silent — and fix'd on the ocean their eyes ; 

They look'd on the dismal and savage Profound, 
And the peril ehill'd back every thought of the prize. 

And thrice spoke the monarch — " The cup to win, 

Is there never a wight who will venture in ? " 

And all as before heard in silence the king- 
Till a youth with an aspect unf earing but gentle, 

'Mid the tremulous squires— stept out from the ring, 
Unbuckling his girdle, and doffing his mantle ; 

And the murmuring crowd as they parted asunder, 

On the stately boy cast their looks of wonder. 



* Sir Edward Rulwer Lytton, to whose translations we 
are indebted for all our extracts from Schiller's poems, 
has kindly permitted us to reprint here the following fine 
ballads. The notes of the translator make all further 
critical remarks unnecessary. 



70 



SCHILLER. 



As he strode to the marge of the summit, and gave 
One glance on the gulf of that merciless main ; 

Lo ! the wave that for ever devours the wave, 
Casts roaringly up the charybdis again ; 

And, as with the swell of the far thunder-boom, 

Rushes foamingly forth from the heart of the gloom. 

And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars,* 
As when fire is with water commix'd and contending, 

And the spray of its wrath to the welkin up-soars, 
And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending. 

And it never will-rest, nor from travail be free, 

Like a sea that is labouring the birth of a sea. 

Yet, at length, comes a lull o'er the mighty commotion, 
As the whirlpool sucks into black smoothness the swell 

Of the white-foaming breakers— and cleaves thro' the ocean 
A path that seems winding in darkness to hell. 

Round and round whirl'd the waves— deep and deeper 
still driven, 

Like a gorge thro' the mountainous main thunder-riven ! 

The youth gave his trust to his Maker ! Before 
That path through the riven abyss closed again— 

Hark ! a shriek from the crowd rang along from the shore, 
And, behold ! he is whirl'd in the grasp of the main ! 

And o'er him the breakers mysteriously roll'd, 

And the giant mouth closed on the swimmer so bold. 

O'er the surface grim silence lay dark ; but the crowd 
Heard the wail from the deep, murmur hollow and fell ; 

They hearken and shudder, lamenting aloud — 
" Gallant youth— noble heart— fare-thee-well, fare-thee- 
well ! " 

More hollow and more wails the deep on the ear — 

More dread and more dread grows suspense in its fear. 

If thou shouldst in those waters thy diadem fling, 
And cry, " Who may find it shall win it and wear ; " 

God wot, though the prize were the crown of a king— 
A crown at such hazard were valued too dear. 

For never shall lips of the living reveal 

What the deeps that howl yonder in terror conceal. 

Ob, many a bark, to that breast grappled fast, 
Has gone down to the fearful and fathomless grave ; 

Again, crash'd together the keel and the mast, 
To be seen, toss'd aloft in the glee of the wave. — 

Like the growth of a storm ever louder and clearer, 

Grows the roar of the gulf rising nearer and nearer. 

And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars, 
As when fire is with water commix'd and contending ; 

And the spray of its wrath to the welkin up-soars, 
And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending ; 

And as with the swell of the far thunder-boom, 

Rushes roaringly forth from the heart of the gloom. 

And, lo ! from the heart of that far-floating gloom, t 
What gleams on the darkness so swanlike and white ? 

Lo ! an arm and a neck, glancing up from the tomb ! — 
They battle — the Man 's with the Element's might. 

It is he — it is he ! in his left hand behold, 

As a sign— as a joy !— shines the goblet of gold ! 

And he breathed deep, and he breathed long, 
And he greeted the heavenly delight of the day. 

* " Und es wallet, und siedet, und brauset, und zischt," 
&c Goethe was particularly struck with the truthfulness 
of these lines, of which his personal observation at the 
Falls of the Rhine enabled him to judge. Schiller modestly 
owns his obligations to Homer's description of Charybdis, 
Odyss. 1. 12. The property of the higher order of imagi- 
nation to reflect truth, though not familiar to experience, 
is singularly illustrated in this description. Schiller had 
never seen even a waterfall. 

\ The same rhyme as the preceding line in the original- 



They gaze on each other— they shout, as they throng— 

" He lives— lo, the ocean has render'd its prey ! 
And safe from the whirlpool and free from the grave, 
Comes back to the daylight the soul of the brave I " 

And he comes, with the crowd in their clamour and glee, 
And the goblet his daring has won from the water, 

He lifts to the king as he sinks on his knee ; — 
And the king from her maidens has beckon'd his 
daughter — 

She pours to the boy the bright wine which they bring, 

And thus spake the Diver—" Long life to the king ! 

" Happy they who in rose-hues of daylight rejoice, 
The air and the sky that to mortals are given ! 

May the horror below never more find a voice — 
Nor Man stretch too far the wide mercy of Heaven ; 

Never more— never more may he lift from the sight 

The veil which is woven with Terror and Night ! 

" Quick-brightening like lightning— it tore me along, 
Down, down, till the gush of a torrent, at play 

In the rocks of its wilderness, caught me — and strong 
As the wings of an eagle, it whirl'd me away. 

Vain, vain was my struggle — the circle had won me, 

Round and round in its dance the wild element spun me. 

" And I call'd on my God, and my God heard my prayer, 
In the strength of my need, in the gasp of my breath— 

And show'd me a crag that rose up from the lair, 
And I clung to it, nimbly — and baffled the death ! 

And, safe in the perils around me, behold 

On the spikes of the coral the goblet of gold. 

" Below, at the foot of that precipice drear, 
Spread the gloomy, and purple, and pathless Obscure ! 

A silence of Horror that slept on the ear, 
That the eye more appall'd might the Horror endure ! 

Salamander — snake— dragon— vast reptiles that dwell 

In the deep— coil'd about the grim jaws of their hell. 

" Dark-crawl'd— glided dark the unspeakable swarms, 
Clump'd together in masses, misshapen and vast — 

Here clung and here bristled the fashionless forms — 
Here the dark-moving bulk of the Hammer-fish pass'd — 

And with teeth grinning white, and a menacing motion, 

Went the terrible Shark— the Hyaena of Ocean. 

" There I hung, and the awe gather'd icily o'er me, 
So far from the earth, when man's help there was none ! 

The One Human Thing, with the Goblins before me— 
Alone — in a loneness so ghastly — alone ! 

Fathom-deep from man's eye in the speechless profound, 

With the death of the Main and the Monsters around. 

" Methought, as I gazed through the darkness, that now 
It saw — the dread hundred- limbed creature — its prey ! 

And darted— O God ! from the far flaming-bough 
Of the coral, I swept on the horrible way ; 

And it seized me, the wave with its wrath and its roar, 

It seized me to save— King, the danger is o'er ! " 

On the youth gazed the monarch, and marvell'd ; quoth he, 
" Bold Diver, the goblet I promised is thine, 

And this ring will I give, a fresh guerdon to thee, 
Never jewels more precious shone up from the mine ; 

If thou 'It bring me fresh tidings, and venture again, 

To say what lies hid in the innermost main ? " 

Then outspake the daughter in tender emotion : 
" Ah ! father, my father, what more can there rest ? 

Enough of this sport with the pitiless ocean — 
He has served thee as none would, thyself hast confest. 

If nothing can slake thy wild thirst of desire, 

Let thy knights put to shame the exploits of the squire ! " 

The king seized the goblet— he swung it on high 
And whirling, it fell in the roar of the tide : 



SCHILLER. 



71 



" But bring back tbat goblet again to my eye, 

And I '11 bold thee the dearest that rides by my side ; 
And thine arms shall embrace, as thy bride, I decree, 
The maiden whose pity now pleadeth for thee." 

In his heart, as he listen'd, there leapt the wild joy— < 
And the hope and the love through his eyes spoke in 
fire, 

On that bloom, on that blush, gazed delighted the boy ; 
The maiden — she faints at the feet of her sire ! 

Here the guerdon divine, there the danger beneath ; 

He resolves ! To the strife with the life and the death ! 

They hear the loud surges sweep back in their swell, 
Their coming the thunder-sound heralds along ! 

Fond eyes* yet are tracking the spot where he fell : 
They come, the wild waters, in tumult and throng, 

Roaring up to the cliff— roaring back, as before, 

But no wave ever brings the lost youth to the shore. 

" This Ballad is the first composed by Schiller, 
if Ave except his early and ruder lay of " Count 
Eberhard, the Quarreller," which really, however, 
has more of the true old ballad spirit about it than 
those grand and artistic tales elaborated by his 
riper genius and belonging to a school of poetry, 
to which the ancient Ballad singer certainly never 
pretended to aspire. . . The old Ballad is but a 
simple narrative, without any symbolical or inte- 
rior meaning. . , But in most of the performances 
to which Schiller has given the name of Ballad, a 
certain purpose, not to say philosophy, in concep- 
tion, elevates the Narrative into Dramatic dignity. 
. . . Rightly, for instance, has ' The Diver ' been 
called a Lyrical Tragedy in two Acts — the first 
act ending with the disappearance of the hero 
amidst the whirlpool ; and the conception of the 
contest of Man's will with physical Nature, . . . 
together with the darkly hinted moral, not to 
stretch too far the mercy of Heaven, . . . belong 
in themselves to the design and the ethics of 
Tragedy. 

" There is another peculiarity in the art which 
Schiller employs upon his narrative poems. — ■ 
Though he usually enters at once on the interest 
of his story, and adopts, for the most part, the 
simple and level style of recital, he selects a sub- 
ject admitting naturally of some striking picture, 
upon which he lavishes these resources of descrip- 
tion that are only at the command of a great poet ; 
. . . thus elevating the ancient ballad not only into 
something of the Drama, by conception, but into 
something of the Epic by execution. — The reader 
will recognise this peculiarity in the description 
of the Charybdis and the Abyss in the Ballad he 
has just concluded — in that of the storm in 'Hero 
and Leander' — of the Forge and the Catholic 
Ritual in'Fridolin' — of the Furies in the 'Cranes 
of Ibycus,' &c. . . . We have the more drawn the 
reader's notice to these distinctions between the 
simple ballad of the ancient minstrels, and the 
artistical narratives of Schiller — because it seems 
to us, that our English critics are too much inclined 
to consider that modern Ballad-writing succeeds 
or fails in proportion as it seizes merely the spirit 
of the ancient. . . . But this would but lower genius 
to an exercise of the same imitative ingenuity 
which a school-boy or a college prizeman displays 
upon Latin Lyrics. ... in which the merits con- 
sist in the avoidance of originality. The Great 

* Viz. : the King's Daughter. 



Poet cannot be content with only imitating what 
he studies : And he succeeds really in proportion 
not to his fidelity but his innovations . . . that 
is, in proportion as he improves upon what serves 
him as a model. 

"In the ballad of 'The Diver,' Schiller not 
only sought the simple but the sublime. — According 
to his own just theory — ' The main Ingredient 
of Terror is the Unknown.' He here seeks to 
accomplish as a poet what he before perceived as a 
critic. . . . And certainly the picture of his lonely 
Diver amidst the horrors of the Abyss, dwells upon 
the memory amongst the sublimest conceptions of 
modern Poetry." 

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. 



THE KNIGHT OF TOGGENBURG. 

[In this beautiful ballad, Schiller is but little indebted 
to the true Legend of Toggenburg, which is nevertheless 
well adapted to Narrative Poetry. Ida, wife of Henry 
Count of Toggenburg, was suspected by her husband of a 
guilty attachment to one of his vassals, and ordered to 
be thrown from a high wall. Her life, however, was 
miraculously saved; she lived for some time as a 
female hermit in a neighbouring forest, till she was at 
length discovered, and her innocence recognised. She 
refused to live again with the Lord whose jealousy had 
wronged her, retired to a convent, and was acknowledged 
as a saint after her death. This legend, if abandoned by 
Schiller, has found a German Poet not unworthy of its 
simple beauty and pathos. Schiller has rather founded 
his poem, which sufficiently tells its own tale, upon a 
Tyrolese legend similar to the one that yet consecrates 
Rolandseck and Nonenworth on the Rhine. Hoffmeister 
implies that, unlike " The Diver," and some other of 
Schiller's Ballads, " The Knight of Toggenburg " dispenses 
with all intellectual and typical meaning, draws its poe- 
try from feeling, and has no other purpose than that of 
moving the heart. Still upon Feeling itself are founded 
those ideal truths which make up the true philosophy of 
a Poet. In these few stanzas are represented the poetical 
chivalry of an age — the contest between the earthly pas- 
sion and the religious devotion, which constantly agitated 
human life in the era of the Crusades. How much of deep 
thought has been employed to arouse the feelings — what 
intimate conviction of the moral of the middle ages, in 
the picture of the Knight looking up to the convent — of 
the Nun bowing calmly to the vale !] 

" Knight, a sister's quiet love 

Gives my heart to thee ! 
Ask me not for other love, 

For it paineth me ! 
Calmly couldst thou greet me now, 

Calmly from me go ; 
Calmly ever, — why dost thou 

Weep in silence, so?" 

Sadly — (not a word he said !) — 

To the heart she wrung, 
Sadly clasp' d he once the maid, — 

On his steed he sprung ! 
" Up, my men of Swisserland ! " 

Up awake the brave ! 
Forth they go — the Red-Cross band, 

To the Saviours grave ! 

High your deeds, and great your fame, 

Heroes of the tomb ! 
Glancing through the carnage came 

Many a dauntless plume. 



72 



SCHILLER. 



Terror of the Moorish foe, 

Toggenburg, thou art ! 
But thy heart is heavy ! Oh, 

Heavy is thy heart ! 

Heavy was the load his breast 

For a twelvemonth bore : 
Never can his trouble rest ! 

And he left the shore. 
Lo ! a ship on Joppa's strand, 

Breeze and billow fair, 
On to that beloved land, 

"Where she breathes the air ! 

Knocking at her castle-gate 

Was the pilgrim heard ; 
Woe the answer from the grate ! 

AVoe the thunder-word ! 
" She thou seekest lives — a Nun ! 

To the world she died ! 
When, with yester-morning's sun, 

Heaven received a Bride ! " 

From that day his father's hall 

Ne'er his home may be ; 
Helm, and hauberk, steed and all, 

Evermore left he ! 
Where his castle-crowned height 

Frowns the valley down, 
Dwells unknown the hermit-knight, 

In a sackcloth gown. 

Rude the hut he built him there, 

Where his eyes may view 
Wall and cloister glisten fair 

Dusky lindens through*. 
There, when dawn was in the skies, 

Till the eve-star shone, 
Sate he with mute wistful eyes, 

Sate he there — alone ! 

Looking to the cloister, still, 

Looking forth afar, 
Looking to her lattice — till 

Clink' d the lattice-bar. 
Till — a passing glimpse allow' d — ■ 

Paused her image pale, 
Calm, and angel-mild, and bow'd 

Meekly tow'rds the vale. 

Then the watch of day was o'er, 

Then, consoled awhile, 
Down he lay, to greet once more, 

Morning's early smile. 
Days and years are gone, and still 

Looks he forth afar, 
Uncomplaining, hoping — till 

Clinks the lattice-bar : 

Till, — a passing glimpse allow'd, 

Paused her image pale, 
Calm, and angel-mild, and bow'd 

Meekly tow'rds the vale. 

* In this description (though to the best of our recollec- 
tion it has escaped the vigilance of his many commentators) 
Schiller has his eye and mind upon the scene of his early 
childhood at Lorch, a scene to which in later life he was 
fondly attached. 

The village of Lorch lies at the foot of a hill crowned 
with a convent, before the walls of which springs a linden 
or lime tree. The ruined castle of Hohenstaufen is in the 
immediate neighbourhood. 



So, upon that lonely spot, 

Sate he, dead at last, 
With the look where life was not 

Tow'rds the casement cast ! 

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. 



THE FIGHT WITH THE DRAGON. 

Who comes ? — why rushes fast and loud, 
Through lane and street the hurtling crowd, 
Is Rhodes on fire ? — Hurrah ! — along 
Faster and faster storms the throng ! 
High towers a shape in knightly garb — 
Behold the Rider and the Barb ! 
Behind is dragged a wondrous load ; 
Beneath what monster groans the road ? 
The horrid jaws — the Crocodile, 

The shape the mightier Dragon, shows — 
From Man to Monster all the while — 

The alternate wonder glancing goes. 

Shout thousands, with a single voice, 
" Behold the Dragon, and rejoice, 
Safe roves the herd, and safe the swain ! 
Lo ! — there the Slayer — here the Slain ! 
Full many a breast, a gallant life, 
Has waged against the ghastly strife, 
And ne'er return' d to mortal sight — 
Hurrah, then, for the Hero Knight ! " 
So to the cloister, where the vow'd 

And peerless brethren of St. John 
In conclave sit — that sea-like crowd, 

Wave upon wave, goes thundering on. 

High o'er the rest, the chief is seen — 
There wends the Knight with modest mien ; 
Pours through the galleries raised for all 
Above that Hero-council Hall, 
The crowd — And thus the Victor One : — 
" Prince — the knight's duty I have done. 
The Dragon that devour' d the land 
Lies slain beneath thy servant's hand ; 
Free o'er the pasture rove the flocks — 

And free the idler's steps may stray — 
And freely o'er the lonely rocks, 

The holier pilgrim wends his way ! " 

A lofty look the Master gave : 
" Certes," he said, " thy deed is brave ; 
Dread was the danger, dread the fight — 
Bold deeds bring fame to vulgar knight ; 
But say, what sways with holier laws 
The knight who sees in Christ his cause, 
And wears his cross?" — Then every cheek 
Grew pale to hear the Master speak ; 
But nobler was the blush that spread 

His face — the Victor's of the day — 
As bending lowly — " Prince," he said ; 

" His noblest duty — to obey ! " 

" And yet that duty, son," replied 

The chief, " methinks thou hast denied ; 

And dared thy sacred sword to wield 

For fame in a forbidden field." 

" Master, thy judgment, howsoe'er 

It lean, til^all is told, forbear — 

Thy law, in spirit and in will, 

I had no thought but to fulfil. 

Not rash, as some, did I depart 

A Christian's blood in vain to shed ; 



SCHILLER. 



73 



But hoped by skill, and strove by art, 
To make my life avenge the dead. 

" Five of our Order, in renown 
The war-gems of our saintly crown, 
The martyr's glory bought with life ; 
'Twas then thy law forbade the strife. 
Yet in my heart there gnaw'd, like fire, 
Proud sorrow, fed with stern desire : 
In the still visions of the night, 
Panting I fought the fancied fight ; 
And when the morrow glimmering came, 

"With tales of ravage freshly done, 
The dream remember' d, turn'd to shame, 

That night should dare what day should shun. 

" And thus my fiery musings ran — 
' What youth has learn'd should nerve the man ; 
How lived the great in days of old, 
Whose fame to time by bards is told — 
Who, heathens though they were, became 
As gods — upborne to heaven by fame ? 
How proved they best the hero's worth ? 
They chased the monster from the earth — 
They sought the lion in his den — 

They pierced the Cretan's deadly maze — 
Their noble blood gave humble men 

Their happy birthright — peaceful days. 

" ' "What ! sacred, but against the horde 
Of Mahound, is the Christian's sword ? 
All strife, save one, should he forbear ? 
No ! earth itself the Christian's care — 
From every ill and every harm, 
Man's shield should be the Christian's arm. 
Yet art o'er strength will oft prevail, 
And mind must aid where heart may fail ! ' 
Thus musing, oft I roam'd alone, 

Where wont the Hell-born Beast to lie ; 
Till sudden light upon me shone, 

And on my hope broke victory ! 

" Then, Prince, I sought thee with the prayer 

To breathe once more my native air ; 

The license given — the ocean past — 

I reach'd the shores of home at last. 

Scarce hail'd the old beloved land, 

Than huge, beneath the artist's hand, 

To every hideous feature true, 

The Dragon's monster-model grew, 

The dwarf' d, deformed limbs upbore 

The lengthen'd body's ponderous load ; 
The scales the impervious surface wore, 

Like links of burnish'd harness, glow'd. 

" Life-like, the huge neck seem'd to swell, 
And widely, as some porch to hell, 
You might the horrent jaws survey, 
Grisly, and greeding for their prey. 
Grim fangs an added terror gave, 
Like crags that whiten through a cave. 
The very tongue a sword in seeming — 
The deep-sunk eyes in sparkles gleaming. 
Where the vast body ends, succeed 

The serpent spires around it roll'd — 
Woe — woe to rider, woe to steed, 

Whom coils as fearful e'er enfold ! 

" All to the awful life was done 
The very hue, so ghastly, won — 



The grey, dull tint : — the labour ceased, 
It stood — half reptile and half beast ! 
And now began the mimic chase ; 
Two dogs I sought, of noblest race, 
Fierce, nimble, fleet, and wont to scorn 
The wild bull's wrath and levell'd horn ; 
These, docile to my cheering cry, 

I train'd to bound, and rend, and spring, 
Now round the Monster-shape to fly, 

Now to the Monster-shape to cling ! 

" And where their gripe the best assails, 
The belly left unsheath'd in scales, 
I taught the dexterous hounds to hang 
And find the spot to fix the fang; 
"Whilst I, with lance and mailed garb, 
Launch'd on the beast mine Arab barb. 
From purest race that Arab came — 
And steeds, like men, are fired by fame. 
Beneath the spur he chafes to rage ; 

Onwards we ride in full career — 
I seem, in truth, the war to wage — 

The monster reels beneath my spear ! 

" Albeit, when first the destrier* eyed 

The laidly thing, it swerved aside, 

Snorted and rear'd — and even they, 

The fierce hounds, shrank with startled bay ; 

I ceased not, till, by custom bold, 

After three tedious moons were told, 

Both barb and hounds were train'd — nay, more, 

Fierce for the fight — then left the shore ! 

Three days have fleeted since I prest 

(Return'd at length) this welcome soil, 
Nor once would lay my limbs to rest, 

Till wrought the glorious crowning toil. 

" For much it moved my soul to know 
The unslack'ning curse of that grim foe. 
Fresh rent, men's bones lay bleach'd and bare 
Around the hell-worm's swampy lair ; 
And pity nerved me into steel : — 
Advice ? — I had a heart to feel, 
And strength to dare ! So, to the deed. — 
I call'd my squires — bestrode my steed, 
And with my stalwart hounds, and by 

Lone secret paths, we gaily go 
Unseen — at least by human eye — 

Against a worse than human foe ! 

" Thouknow'st the sharp rock — steep and hoar?— 
The abyss? — the chapel glimmering o'er? 
Built by the Fearless Master's hand, 
The fane looks down on all the land. 
Humble and mean that house of prayer — 
Yet God hath shrined a wonder there : — 
Mother and Child, to whom of old 
The Three Kings knelt with gifts, behold ! 
By three times thirty steps, the shrine 

The pilgrim gains — and faint, and dim, 
And dizzy with the height, divine 

Strength on a sudden springs to him ! 

" Yawns wide within that holy steep 
A mighty cavern dark and deep — 
By blessed sunbeam never lit — 
Rank foetid swamps engirdle it ; 
And there by night, and there by day, 
Ever at watch, the fiend-worm lay, 

* War-horse. 



74 



SCHILLER. 



Holding the Hell of its abode 
Fast by the hallow' d House of God. 
And when the pilgrim gladly ween'd 

His feet had found the healing way, 
Forth from its ambush rush'd the fiend, 

And down to darkness dragg'd the prey. 

"With solemn soul, that solemn height 
I clomb, ere yet I sought the fight — 
Kneeling before the cross within, 
My heart," confessing, clear' d its sin. 
Then, as befits the Christian knight, 
I donn'd the spotless surplice white, 
And, by the altar, grasp' d the spear : — 
So down I strode with conscience clear — 
Bade my leal squires afar the deed, 

By death or conquest crown'd, await — 
Leapt lightly on my lithesome steed, 

And gave to God his soldier's fate ! 

" Before me wide the marshes lay — 
Started the hounds with sudden bay — 
Aghast the swerving charger slanting 
Snorted — then stood abrupt and panting — 
For curling there, in coiled fold, 
The Unutterable Beast behold ! 
Lazily basking in the sun. 
Forth sprang the dogs. The fight 's begun! 
But lo ! the hounds, in cowering, fly 

Before the mighty poison-breath — 
A fierce yell, like the jackall's cry, 

Howl'd, mingling with that wind of death. 

" No halt — I gave one cheering sound, 
Lustily springs each dauntless hound — 
Swift as the dauntless hounds advance, 
Whirringly skirrs my stalwart lance — 
Whirringly skirrs ; and from the scale 
Bounds, as a reed, aslant the mail. 
Onward — but no ! — the craven steed 
Shrinks from his lord in that dread need — 

Smitten and scar'd before that eye 
Of basilisk horror, and that blast 

Of death, it only seems to fly — 
And half the mighty hope is past ! 

" A moment, and to earth I leapt ; 
Swift from its sheath the falchion swept ; 
Swift on that rock-like mail it plied — 
The rock-like mail the sword defied : 
The monster lash'd its mighty coil — 
Down hurl'd — behold me on the soil ! 
Behold the hell-jaws gaping wide — 
When lo ! they bound — the flesh is found ; 

Upon the scaleless parts they spring ! 
Springs either hound ; — the flesh is found — 

It roars ; the blood-dogs cleave and cling ! 

" No time to foil its fastening foes — 
Light, as it writhed, I sprang, and rose ; 
The all-unguarded place explored, 
Up to the hilt I plunged my sword — 
Buried one instant in the blood — 
The next, upsprang the bubbling flood ! 
The next, one Vastness spread the plain — 
Crush'd down — the victor with the slain ; 
And all was dark — and on the ground 

My life, suspended, lost the sun, 
Till waking — lo my squires around — 

And the dead foe ! my tale is done." 



Then burst, as from a common breast, 

The eager laud so long supprest — 

A thousand voices, choral-blending, 

Up to the vaulted dome ascending — 

From groined roof and banner'd wall, 

Invisible echoes answering all — 

The very Brethren, grave and high, 

Forget their state, and join the cry : 

" With laurel wreaths his brows be crown'd, 

Let throng to throng his triumph tell ; 
Hail him, all Rhodes ! " — the Master frown'd, 

And rais'd his hand — and silence fell. 

" Well," said that solemn voice, " thy hand 

From the wild-beast hath freed the land. 

An idol to the people be ! 

A foe our Order frowns on thee ! 

For in thy heart, superb and vain, 

A hell-worm laidlier than the slain, 

To discord which engenders death, 

Poisons each thought with baleful breath ! 

That hell-worm is the stubborn Will — 

Oh ! What were man and nations worth 
If each his own desire fulfil, 

And law be banished from the earth ? 

" Valour the Heathen gives to story — 
Obedience is the Christian's glory ; 
And on that soil our Saviour-God 
As the meek low-born mortal trod. 
We the Apostle-knights were sworn 
To laws thy daring laughs to scorn — 
Not fame, but duty to fulfil — 
Our noblest offering — man's wild will. 
Vain-glory doth thy soul betray — 

Begone — thy conquest is thy loss : 
No breast too haughty to obey, 

Is worthy of the Christian's cross ! " 

From their cold awe the crowds awaken, 
As with some storm the halls are shaken ; 
The noble Brethren plead for grace — 
Mute stands the doom'd, with downward face ; 
And mutely loosen' d from its band 
The badge, and kiss'd the Master's hand, 
And meekly turn'd him to depart : 
A moist eye follow'd, " To my heart 
Come back, my son ! " — the Master cries : 

" Thy grace a harder fight obtains ; 
When Valour risks the Christian's prize, 

Lo, how Humility regains !" 

"In the poem just presented to the reader, 
Schiller designed, as he wrote to Goethe, to 
depict the old Christian chivalry — half knightly, 
half monastic. The attempt is strikingly success- 
ful. Indeed, ' The Fight of the Dragon ' appears 
to us the most spirited and nervous of all Schiller's 
narrative poems, with the single exception of ' The 
Diver ;' and if its interest is less intense than that 
of the matchless i Diver,' and its descriptions less 
poetically striking and effective, its interior mean- 
ing or philosophical conception is at once more 
profound and more elevated. In 'The Fight of 
the Dragon,' is expressed the moral of that humi- 
lity which consists in self-conquest — even merit 
may lead to vain-glory — and, after vanquishing his 
fiercest enemies without, Man has still to contend 
with his worst foe, — the pride and disobedience of 
his own heart. i Every one,' as a recent and 



SCHILLER. 



75 



acute, but somewhat over-refining critic has re- 
marked, ' has more or less — his own * Fight with 
the Dragon ' — his own double victory (without 
and within) to achieve.' The origin of this poem 
is to be found in the Annals of the Order of Malta 
— and the details may be seen in Vertot's History. 
The date assigned to the conquest of the Dragon 
is 1342. Helion de Villeneuve was the name of 
the Grand Master — that of the Knight, Dieu- 
Donne de Gozon. Thevenot declares that the 
head of the monster (to whatever species it really 
belonged), or its effigies, was still placed over one 
of the gates of the city in his time. — Dieu-Donne 
succeeded De Villeneuve as Grand Master, and on 
his gravestone were inscribed the words 'Draconis 
Exstinctor.' " 

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. 



THE CRANES OP IBYCUS. 

From Rhegium to the Isthmus, long 
Hallow' d to steeds and glorious song, 
Where, link'd awhile in holy peace, 
Meet all the sons of martial Greece — 
Wends Ihycus — whose lips the sweet 

And ever-young Apollo fires ; 
The staff supports the wanderer's feet — 

The God the Poet's soul inspires ! 

Soon from the mountain-ridges high, 
The tower-crown'd Corinth greets his eye ; 
In Neptune's groves of darksome pine, 
He treads with shuddering awe divine ; 
Nought lives around him, save a swarm 

Of Cranes, that still pursued his way — 
Lured hy the South, they wheel and form 

In ominous groups their wild array. 

And " Hail ! heloved Birds ! " he cried ; 
" My comrades on the ocean tide, 
Sure signs of good ye bode to me ; 
Our lots alike would seem to be ; 
From far, together borne, we greet 

A shelter now from toil and danger ; 
And may the friendly hearts we meet 

Preserve from every ill — the Stranger ! " 

His step more light, his heart more gay, 
Along the mid-wood winds his way, 
When, where the path the thickets close, 
Burst sudden forth two ruffian foes ; 
Now strife to strife, and foot to foot I 

Ah ! weary sinks the gentle hand ; 
The gentle hand that wakes the lute 

Has learn'd no lore that guides the brand. 

He calls on men and Gods — in vain ! 
His cries no blest deliverer gain ; 
Feebler and fainter grows the sound, 
And still the deaf life slumbers round — 
" In the far land I fall forsaken, 

Unwept and unregarded, here ; 
By death from caitiff hands o'ertaken, 

Nor ev'n one late avenger near ! " 

Down to the earth the death-stroke bore him — 
Hark, where the Cranes wheel dismal o'er him ! 
He hears, as darkness veils his eyes, 
Near, in hoarse croak, their dirgclike cries. 



" Ye whose wild wings above me hover, 
(Since never voice, save yours alone, 

The deed can tell) — the hand discover — 
Avenge ! " He spoke, and life was gone. 

Naked and maim'd the corpse was found — 
And, still through many a mangling wound, 
The sad Corinthian Host could trace 
The loved — too well-remember' d face. 
" And must I meet thee thus once more ? 

Who hoped with wreaths of holy pine, 
Bright with new fame — the victory o'er — 

The Singer's temples to entwine ! " 

And loud lamented every guest 
Who held the Sea-God's solemn feast — 
As in a single heart prevailing, 
Throughout all Hellas went the wailing. 
Wild to the Council Hall they ran — 

In thunder rush'd the threat' ning Flood — 
" Revenge shall right the murder' d man, J 

The last atonement — blood for blood ! " 

Yet 'mid the throng the Isthmus claims, 
Lured by the Sea-God's glorious games — 
The mighty many-nation'd throng — 
How track the hand that wrought the wrong?- 
How guess if that dread deed were done, 

By ruffian hands or secret foes ? 
He who sees all on earth — the Sun — 

Alone the gloomy secret knows. 

Perchance he treads in careless peace, 
Amidst your Sons, assembled Greece — 
Hears with a smile revenge decreed — 
Gloats with fell joy upon the deed — 
His steps the avenging gods may mock 

Within the very Temple's wall, 
Or mingle with the crowds that flock 

To yonder solemn scenic* hall. 

Wedg'd close, and serried, swarms the crowd- 
Beneath the weight the walls are bow'd — 
Thitherwards streaming far, and wide, 
Broad Hellas flows in mingled tide — 
A tide like that which heaves the deep 

When hollow-sounding, shoreward driven ; 
On, wave on wave, the thousands sweep 

Till arching, row on row, to heaven ! 

The tribes, the nations, who shall name, 
That guest-like, there assembled came ? 
From Theseus' town, from Aulis' strand — 
From Phocis, from the Spartans' land — 
From Asia's wave-divided clime, 

The Isles that gem the iEgean Sea, 
To hearken on that Stage Sublime, 

The Dark Choir's mournful melody ! 

True to the awful rites of old, 
In long and measured strides, behold 
The Chorus from the hinder ground, 
Pace the vast circle's solemn round. 
So this World's women never strode, 

Their race from Mortals ne'er began, 
Gigantic, from their grim abode, 

They tower above the Sons of Man ! 

* The theatre. 



76 



SCHILLER. 



Across their loins the dark robe clinging, 
In fleshless hands the torches swinging, 
Now to and fro, with dark red glow — 
No blood that lives the dead cheeks know ! 
Where flow the locks that woo to love 

On human temples — ghastly dwell 
The serpents, coil'd the brow above, 

And the green asps with poison swell. 

Thus circling, horrible, within 
That space — doth their dark hymn begin, 
And round the sinner as they go, 
Cleave to the heart their words of woe. 
Dismally wails, the senses chilling, 

The hymn — the Furies' solemn song ; 
And froze the very marrow thrilling 

As roll'd the gloomy sounds along. 

" And weal to him — from crime secure — 
Who keeps his soul as childhood's pure ; 
Life's path he roves, a wanderer free — 
We near him not — The Avengers, We ! 
But woe to him for whom we weave 

The doom for deeds that shun the light ; 
Past to the murderer's feet we cleave, 

The fearful Daughters of the Night. 

" And deems he flight from us can hide him ? 
Still on dark wings We sail beside him ! 
The murderer's feet the snare enthralls — 
Or soon or late, to earth he falls ! 
Untiring, hounding on, we go ; 

For blood can no remorse atone ! 
On, ever — to the Shades below, 

And there — we grasp him, still our own ! " 

So singing, their slow dance they wreathe, 
And stillness, like a silent death, 
Heavily there lay cold and drear, 
As if the Godhead's self were near. 
Then, true to those strange rites of old, 

Pacing the circle's solemn round, 
In long and measured strides — behold, 

They vanish in the hinder ground ! 

Confused and doubtful — half between 
The solemn truth and phantom scene, 
The crowd revere the power, presidin 
O'er secret deeds, to justice guiding — 
The Unfathom'd and Inscrutable, 

By whom the web of doom is spun ; 
Whose shadows in the deep heart dwell, 

Whose form is seen not in the sun ! 

Just then, amidst the highest tier, 
Breaks forth a voice that starts the ear ; 
" See there — see there, Timotheus ; 
Behold the Cranes of Ibycus ! " 
A sudden darkness wraps the sky ; 

Above the roofless building hover 
Dusk, swarming wings ; and heavily [over! 

Sweep the slow Cranes — hoarse-murmuring, 

" Of Ibycus ? " — that name so dear 

Thrills through the hearts of those who hear ! 

Like wave on wave in eager seas, 

From mouth to mouth the murmur flees — 

" Of Ibycus, whom we bewail ? 

The murder'd one ! What mean those words? 
Who is the man — knows he the tale ? 

Why link that name with those wild birds ? " 



Questions on questions louder press — 
Like lightning flies the inspiring guess — 
Leaps every heart — " The truth we seize ; 
Your might is here, Eumenides ! 
The murderer yields himself confest — 

Vengeance is near — that voice the token — 
Ho ! — him who yonder spoke, arrest ! — 

And him to whom the words were spoken ! " 

Scarce had the wretch the words let fall, 
Than fain their sense he would recall. 
In vain ; those whitening lips, behold ! 
The secret have already told. 
Into their Judgment Court sublime 

The Scene is changed; — their doom is seal'd! 
Behold the dark unwitness'd Crime, 

Struck by the light'ning that reveal' d ! 

u The principal sources whence Schiller has 
taken the story of Ibycus (which was well known 
to the ancients, and indeed gave rise to a proverb) 
are Suidas and Plutarch. Ibycus is said by some 
to have been the Inventor of the Sambuca,' or 
triangular Cithara. We must observe, however — 
(though erudite investigation on such a subject 
were misplaced here,) that Athenseus and Strabo 
consider the Sambuca to have originated with the 
Syrians, and this supposition is rendered the more 
probable by the similarity of the Greek word with 
the Hebrew, which in our received translation of 
the Bible is rendered by the word « Sackbut.' The 
tale, in its leading incidents, is told very faithfully 
by Schiller : it is the moral, or interior meaning, 
which he has heightened and idealized. Plutarch 
is contented to draw from the story a moral 
against loquacity. * It was not,' says he, ' the 
Cranes that betrayed the Murderers, but their 
own garrulity.' With Schiller the garrulity is 
produced by the surprise of the Conscience, which 
has been awakened by the Apparition and Song of 
the Furies. His own conceptions as to the effect 
he desired to create are admirable. ' It is not 
precisely that the Hymn of the Furies ' (remarks 
the poet) 'has roused the remorse of the murderer, 
whose exclamation betrays himself and his accom- 
plice ; that was not my meaning — but it has re- 
minded him of his deed : his sense is struck with 
it. In this moment the appearance of the Cranes 
must take him by surprise ; he is a rude, dull 
churl, over whom the impulse of the moment has 
all power. His loud exclamation is natural in 
such circumstances.' ' That he feels no great 
remorse, in this thoughtless exclamation, is evi- 
dent by the quick, snappish nature of it : — ' See 
there, see there ! ' &c.' — i In any other state of 
mind,' observes Hoffmeister,' perhaps the Audience 
might not have attended to this ejaculation — but 
at that moment of deep inward emotion, produced 
by the representation of the fearful Goddesses, 
and an excited belief in their might, the name of 
the newly-murdered man must have struck them 
as the very voice of Fate, in which the speaker 
betrayed himself.' — In fact the poem is an illus- 
tration of Schiller's own lines in ( The Artists,' 
written eight years before : — 

' Here secret Murder, pale and shuddering, sees 
Sweep o'er the stage the stern Eumenides ; 
Owns, where law fails, what powers to art belong, 
And, screened from justice, finds its doom in song!' 



SCHILLER. 



77 



" In the foregoing ballad Poetry (that is, the 
j Dirge and dramatic representation of the Furies) 
acts doubly — first on the Murderer, next on the 
Audience ; it surprises the one into self-betrayal, 
it prepares in the other that state of mind in 
which, as by a divine instinct, the quick percep- 
tion seizes upon the truth. In this double effect 
is nobly typified the power of Poetry on the indi- 
vidual ana on the multitude. Rightly did Schiller 
resolve to discard from his design whatever might 
seem to partake of marvellous or supernatural 
interposition. The appearance of the Cranes is 
purely accidental. . . . Whatever is of diviner 
agency in the punishment of crime is found not in 
the outer circumstances, but in the heart within — 
the true realm in which the gods work their mira- 
cles. As it has been finely said — -' the bad con- 
science (in the Criminal) is its own Nemesis, the 
good conscience in the Many — the audience — 
drags at once the bad before its forum aud ad- 
judges it.' The history of the composition of this 
Poem affords an instance of the exquisite art of 
Goethe, to which it is largely indebted. In the 
first sketch of the ballad, it was only one Crane 
that flew over Ibycus at the time he was murdered, 
and moreover this was only mentioned at the end 
of the piece. But Goethe suggested the enlarge- 
ment of this leading incident — into l the long and 
broad phenomenon ' of the swarm of Cranes, cor- 
responding in some degree with the long and 
ample pageant of the Furies. Schiller at once 
perceived how not only the truthfulness, but the 
grandeur, of his picture was heightened by this 
simple alteration. . . . According to Goethe's 
suggestions, the swarm of Cranes were now intro- 
duced as the companions of Ibycus in his voyage. 
. . . The fine analogy between the human wan- 
derer and his winged companions, each seeking a 
foreign land, was dimly outlined. . . . And the 
generous criticism of the one Poet finally gave its 
present fulness and beauty to the masterpiece of 
the other." 

Sir Edward Buxwer Lytton. 

We now come to a field of poetry which Schiller 
opened, and where there is ample room for future 
triumphs for the poet who will celebrate the Pro- 
gress of Society, and the influence of art in break- 
ing through the dull miserable turmoil of our 
material fife. The wilderness of the world run- 
ning into ruder and ruder wildness under the 
neglect of savage hordes ; — the conflicts of the 
first hunters, Nimrod and his fellows, with the 
fierce beasts of the forests ; — then the beginning 
of agriculture, when 

" A bright thought from heaven to the tiller was given 
Who first turned to light the soil richly brown ; — " 

the tyranny of that oppressive class, "fruges con- 
swraere nati" who love " to reap where they have 
not sown," and under whose sway art and industry 
have languished through many ages ; — then the 
wonderful fertility of modern invention in the 
mechanical sciences, working with giant power in 
the deepest mines, crossing countries with railways, 
and the ocean with steam-vessels, and making 
the electric spark the messenger of intelligence, 
the mind's subservient lightning ; — then, better 
and greater still, the coming of that bright day 



when all these material powers and instruments 
shall be informed and controled by higher moral, 
social and religious purposes, and be bent to their 
proper object, the freedom, elevation, and happiness 
of mankind : — here are themes for the Poet who 
will follow Schiller's suggestions, and so become 
the prophet of a brighter era. 

In his poem entitled the " Eleusinian Festival,'" 
Schiller celebrates the Progress of Agriculture ; 
but " The Lay of the Bell," though it has been 
often translated and commented upon, claims a 
place here, as the best specimen of its author's 
endeavours to unite the charms of poetry, with the 
progress of industry and the interests of human 
life. Again we are indebted to the translations of 
Sir E. B. Lytton. 



THE LAY OF THE BELL. 

" Vivos voco — Mortuos plango— Fulgura Frango." * 



Fast, in its prison-walls of earth, 

Awaits the mould of baked clay. 
Up, comrades, up, and aid the birth — 
The Bell that shall be born to-day ! 
Who would honour obtain, 
With the sweat and the pain, 
The praise that Man gives to the Master must buy ; — 
But the blessing withal must descend from on high ! 

And well an earnest word beseems 

The work an earnest hand prepares, 
Its load more light the labour deems, 

When sweet discourse the labour shares. 
So let us ponder — nor in vainr- 

What strength can work when labour wills ; 
For who would not the fool disdain 

Who ne'er designs what he fulfils ? 
And well it stamps our Human Race, 

And hence the gift To Understand, 
That Man, within the heart should trace 

Whate'er he fashions with the hand. 



From the fir the faggot take, 

Keep it, heap it hard and dry, 
That the gather' d flame may break 
Through the furnace, wroth and high. 
When the copper within 
Seethes and simmers — the tin, 
Pour quick, that the fluid that feeds the Bell 
May flow in the right course glib and well. 

Deep hid within this nether cell, 

What force with Fire is moulding thus, 
In yonder airy tower shall dwell, 

And witness wide and far of us ! 
It shall, in later days, unfailing, 

Rouse many an ear to rapt emotion ; 
Its solemn voice with Sorrow wailing, 

Or choral chiming to Devotion. 

* « I call the Living— I mourn the Dead— I break the 
Lightning." These words are inscribed on the Great Bell 
of the Minster of Schaff hausen — also on that of the 
Church of Art near Lucerne. There was an old belief in 
Switzerland, that the undulation of air caused by the 
sound of a Bell broke the electric fluid of a thunder-cloud. 



78 SCHILLER. 


Whatever Fate to Man may bring, 


Lovely, thither are they bringing, 


"Whatever weal or woe befall, 


With her virgin wreath, the Bride ! 


That metal tongue shall backward ring 


To the love-feast clearly ringing, 


The warning moral drawn from all. 


Tolls the church-bell far and wide ! 




With that sweetest holyday, 


in. 


Must the May of Life depart ; 


See the silvery bubbles spring ! 


. With the cestus loosed — away 


Good ! the mass is melting now ! 


Flies Illusion from the heart ! 


Let the salts we duly bring 


Yet love lingers lonely, 


Purge the flood, and speed the flow. 


When passion is mute, 


From the dross and the scum, 


And the blossoms may only 


Pure, the fusion must come ; 


Give way to the fruit. 


For perfect and pure we the metal must keep, 


The husband must enter 


That its voice may be perfect, and pure, and deep. 


The hostile life, 




With struggle and strife, 


That voice, with merry music rife, 


To plant or to watch, 


The cherish' d child shall welcome in ; 


To snare or to snatch, 


What time the rosy dreams of life, 


To pray and importune, 


In the first slumber's arms begin. 


Must wager and venture 


As yet in Time's dark womb unwarning, 


And hunt down his fortune ! 


Repose of days, or foul or fair ; 


Then flows in a current the gear and the gain, 


And watchful o'er that golden morning, 


And the garners are fill'd with the gold and the grain, 


The Mother-Love's untiring care ! 


Now a yard to the court, now a wing to the centre ! 




Within sits Another, 


And swift the years like arrows fly — 


The thrifty Housewife ; 


No more with girls content to play, 


The mild one, the mother — 


Bounds the proud Boy upon his way, 


Her home is her life. 


Storms through loud life's tumultuous pleasures, 


In its circle she rules, 


With pilgrim staff the wide world measures ; 


And the daughters she schools, 


And, wearied with the wish to roam, 


And she cautions the boys, 


Again seeks, stranger-like, the Father-Home. 


With a bustling command, 


And, lo, as some sweet vision breaks 


And a diligent hand 


Out from its native morning skies, 


Employ'd she employs ; 


With rosy shame on downcast cheeks, 


Gives order to store, 


The Virgin stands before his eyes. 


And the much makes the more ; 


A nameless longing seizes him ! 


Locks the chest and the wardrobe, with lavender 


From all his wild companions flown ; 


smelling, 


Tears, strange till then, his eyes bedim ; 


And the hum of the spindle goes quick through the 


He wanders all alone. 


dwelling ; 


Blushing, he glides where'er she move ; 


And she hoards in the presses, well polish'd and full, 


Her greeting can transport him ; 


The snow of the linen, the shine of the wool ; 


To every mead to deck his love, 


Blends the sweet with the good, and from care and 


The happy wild flowers court him ! 


Rests never ! [endeavour 


Sweet Hope — and tender Longing — ye, 


Blithe the Master (where the while 


The growth of Life's first Age of Gold ; 


From his roof he sees them smile) 


When the heart, swelling, seems to see 


Eyes the lands, and counts the gain ; 


The gates of heaven unfold ! 


There, the beams projecting far, 


Love, the beautiful and brief ! prime, 


And the laden store-house are, 


Glory, and verdure, of life's summer time ! 


And the granaries bow'd beneath 




The blessed golden grain ; 


IV. 


There, in undulating motion, 


Browning o'er, the pipes are simmering, 


Wave the corn-fields like an ocean. 


Dip this wand of clay * within ; 


Proud the boast the proud lips breathe : — 


If like glass the wand be glimmering, 


" My house is built upon a rock, 


Then the casting may begin. 


And sees unmoved the stormy shock 


Brisk, brisk now, and see 


Of waves that fret below ! " 


If the fusion flow free ; 


What chain so strong, what girth so great, 


If — (happy and welcome indeed were the sign !) 


To bind the giant form of Fate ? — 


If the hard and the ductile united combine. 


Swift are the steps of Woe. 


For still where the strong is betrothed to the weak, 


v. 


And the stern in sweet marriage is blent with the meek, 


Now the casting may begin ; 


Rings the concord harmonious, both tender and 


See the breach indented there : 


strong : 


Ere we run the fusion in. 


So be it with thee, if for ever united, 


Halt — and speed the pious prayer ! 


The heart to the heart flows in one, love-delighted ; 


Pull the bung out — 


Illusion is brief, but Repentance is long. 


See round and about 




What vapour, what vapour — God help us ! — has 
risen ? — 


* A piece of clay pipe, which becomes! vitrified if the 


metal is sufficiently heated. 


Ha ! the flame like a torrent leaps forth from its prison ! 



SCHILLER. 



79 



What friend is like the might of fire 
When man can watch and wield the ire ? 
Whate'er we shape or work, we owe 
Still to the heaven-descended glow ; 
But dread the heaven-descended glow, 
When from their chain its wild wings go, 
When, where it listeth, wide and wild 
Sweeps the free Nature's free-bom Child ! 
When the Frantic One fleets, 

While no force can withstand, 
Through the populous streets 

Whirling ghastly the brand ; — 
For the Element hates 
What Man's labour creates, 

And the work of his hand ! 
Impartially out from the cloud, 

Or the curse or the blessing may fall ! 
Benignantly out from the cloud, 

Come the dews, the revivers of all ! 
Avengingly out from the cloud 

Come the levin, the bolt, and the ball ! 
Hark — a wail from the steeple ! — aloud 
The bell shrills its voice to the crowd ! 
Look — look — red as blood 

All on high ! 
It is not the daylight that fills with its flood 

The sky ! 
What a clamour awaking 

Roars up through the street 
What a hell-vapour breaking 

Rolls on through the street, 
And higher and higher 
Aloft moves the Column of Fire ! 
Through the vistas and rows 
Like a whirlwind it goes, 
And the air like the steam from a furnace glows. 
Beams are crackling — posts are shrinking 
Walls are sinking — windows clinking — 
Children crying — 
Mothers flying — 
And the beast (the black ruin yet smouldering under) 
Yells the howl of its pain and its ghastly wonder ! 
Hurry and scurry — away — away, 
The face of night is as clear as day ! 
As the links in a chain, 
Again and again 
Flies the bucket from hand to hand ; 
High in arches up-rushing 
The engines are gushing, 
And the flood, as a beast on the prey that it hounds, 
With a roar on the breast of the element bounds. 
To the grain and the fruits, 
Through the rafters and beams, 
Through the barns and the garners it crackles and 

streams ! 
As if they would rend up the earth from the roots, 
Rush the flames to the sky 
Giant-high ; 
And at length, 

Wearied out and despairing, man bows to their strength ! 
With an idle gaze sees their wrath consume, 
And submits to his doom ! 
Desolate 
The place, and dread 
For storms the barren bed. 

In the blank voids that cheerful casements were, 
Comes to and fro the melancholy air, 
And sits despair ; 

And through the ruin, blackening in its shroud 
Peers, as it flits, the melancholy cloud. 



One human glance of grief upon the grave 
Of all that Fortune gave 

The loiterer takes — Then turns him to depart, 
And grasps the wanderer's staff and mans his heart: 
Whatever else the element bereaves 
One blessing more than all it reft — it leaves, 
The faces that he loves ! — He counts them o'er, 
See — not one look is missing from that store ! 



Now clasp' d the bell within the clay — 
The mould the mingled metals fill — 
Oh, may it, sparkling into day, 
Reward the labour and the skill ! 
Alas ! should it fail, 
For the mould may be frail — 
And still with our hope must be mingled the fear — 
And, ev'n now, while we speak, the mishap may be near ! 
To the dark womb of sacred earth 

This labour of our hands is given, 
As seeds that wait the second birth, 

And turn to blessings watch'd by Heaven ! 
Ah seeds, how dearer far than they, 

We bury in the dismal tomb, 
Where Hope and Sorrow bend to pray 
That suns beyond the realm of day 
May warm them into bloom ! 

From the steeple 
Tolls the bell, 
Deep and heavy, 
The death-knell ! 
Guiding with dirge-note — solemn, sad, and slow, 
To the last home earth's weary wanderers know. 
It is that worshipp'd wife — 
It is that faithful mother ! * 
Whom the dark Prince of Shadows leads benighted, 
From that dear arm where oft she hung delighted. 
Far from those blithe companions, born 
Of her, and blooming in their morn ; 
On whom, when couch'd her heart above, 
So often look'd the Mother-Love ! 

Ah ! rent the sweet Home's union-band, 

And never, never more to come — 
She dwells within the shadowy land, 

Who was the Mother of that Home ! 
How oft they miss that tender guide, 

The care — the watch — the face — the Mother — 
And where she sate the babes beside, 

Sits with unloving looks — Another ! 



While the mass is cooling now, 

Let the labour yield to leisure, 
As the bird upon the bough, 

Loose the travail to the pleasure. 
When the soft stars awaken, 
Each task be forsaken ! 
And the vesper-bell lulling the earth into peace, 
If the master still toil, chimes the workman's release ! 

Homeward from the tasks of day, 
Thro' the greenwood's welcome way 
Wends the wanderer, blithe and cheerly, 
To the cottage loved so dearly ! 

* The translator adheres to the original in forsaking the 
rhyme in these lines and some others. 



80 



SCHILLER. 



And the eye and ear are meeting, 
Now, the slow sheep homeward bleating — 
Now, the wonted shelter near, 
Lowing the lusty-fronted steer ; 
Creaking now the heavy wain, 
Reels with the happy harvest grain. 
While, with many-coloured leaves, 
Glitters the garland on the sheaves ; 
For the mower's work Is done, 
And the young folks' dance begun ! 
Desert, street and quiet mart ; — 
Silence is in the city's heart ; 
And the social taper lighteth 
Each dear face that Home uniteth; 
While the gate the town before 
Heavily swings with sullen roar ! 

Though darkness is spreading 
O'er the earth — the Upright 

And the Honest, undreading, 
Look safe on the night — 

Which the evil man watches in awe, 

For the eye of the night is the Law ! 
Bliss-dower'd ! O daughter of the skies, 
Hail, holy Order, whose employ 
Blends like to like in light and joy — 
Builder of cities, who of old 
Call'd the wild man from waste and wold, 
And, in his hut thy presence stealing, 
Roused each familiar household feeling ; 

And, best of all, the happy ties, 
The centre of the social band, — 
The instinct of the Fatherland / 

United thus, each helping each, 

Brisk work the countless hands for ever; 
For nought its power to Strength can teach, 

Like Emulation and Endeavour ! 
Thus link'd the master with the man, 

Each in his rights can each revere, 
And while they march in Freedom's van, 

Scorn the loud rout that dogs the rear ! 
To freemen labour is renown ! 

Who works — gives blessings and commands; 
Kings glory in the orb and crown — 

Be ours the glory of our hands ! 

Long in these walls — long may we greet 
Your footfalls, Peace and Concord sweet ! 
Distant the day, Oh ! distant far, 
When the rude hordes of trampling War 

Shall scare the silent vale ; 
And where, 

Now the sweet heaven, when day doth leave 
The air, 

Limns its soft rose-hues on the vale of Eve ; 
Shall the fierce war-brand tossing in the gale, 
From town and hamlet shake the horrent glare ! 



Now its destined task fulfill'd, 

Asunder break the prison-mould ; 
Let the goodly Bell we build, 
Eye and heart alike behold. 
The hammer down heave, 
Till the cover it cleave : — 
For not till we shatter the wall of its cell 
Can we lift from its darkness and bondage the Bell. 

T o break the mould, the master may, 
If skill'd the hand and ripe the hour ; 



But woe, when on its fiery way^ 

The metal seeks itself to pour. 
Frantic and blind, with thunder-knell, 

Exploding from its shatter'd home, 
And glaring forth, as from a hell, 

Behold the red destruction come ! 
When rages strength that has no reason, 
There breaks the mould before the season ; 
When numbers burst what bound before, 
Woe to the State that thrives no more ! 
Yea, woe, when in the City's heart, 

The latent spark to flame is blown ; 
And millions from their silence start, 

To claim, without a guide, their own ! 
Discordant howls the warning Bell, 

Proclaiming discord wide and far, 
And, born but things of peace to tell, 

Becomes the ghastliest voice of war : 
' Freedom ! Equality ! ' — to blood, 

Rush the roused people at the sound ! 
Through street, hall, palace, roars the flood, 

And banded murder closes round ! 
The hysena-shapes, (that women were !) 

Jest with the horrors they survey ; 
They hound — they rend — they mangle there- 

As panthers with their prey ! 
Nought rests to hallow — burst the ties 

Of life's sublime and reverent awe ; 
Before the Vice the Virtue flies, 

And Universal Crime is Law ! 
Man fears the lion's kingly tread ; 

Man fears the tiger's fangs of terror ; 
And still the dreadest of the dread, 

Is Man himself in error. 
No torch, though lit from Heaven, illumes 

The Blind ! — Why place it in his hand ? 
It lights not him — it but consumes 

The City and the Land ! 



Rejoice, and laud the prospering skies ! 
The kernel bursts its husk — behold 
From the dull clay the metal rise, 
Pure-shining, as a star of gold ! 
Neck and lip, but as one beam, 
It laughs like a sun-beam. 
And even the scutcheon, clear-graven, shall tell 
That the art of a master has fashion'd the Bell ! 

Come in — come in 

My merry men — we '11 form a ring 

The new-born labour christening ; 

And ' Concord ' we will name her ! — 
To union may her heart-felt call 

In brother-love attune us all ! 
May she the destined glory win 

For which the master sought to frame her — 
Aloft — (all earth's existence under,) 

In blue-pavilion'd heaven afar 
To dwell — the neighbour of the Thunder, 

The Borderer of the Star ! 
Be hers above a voice to raise 

Like those bright hosts in yonder sphere, 
Who, while they move, their Maker praise, 

And lead around the wreathed year ! 
To solemn and eternal things 
We dedicate her lips sublime ! — 
As hourly, calmly, on she swings — 

Fann'd by the fleeting wings of Time ! — 
No pulse — no heart — no feeling hers ! 

She lends the warning voice to Fate ; 



SCHILLER. 



81 



And still companions, while she stirs, 
The changes of the Human State ! 
So may she teach us, as her tone 

But now so mighty, melts away — 
That earth no life which earth has known 
From the last silence can delay ! 
* 
Slowly now the cords upheave her ! 

From her earth-grave soars the Bell ; 
Mid the airs of heaven we leave her ! 
In the Music-Realm to dwell ! 
Up — upwards — yet raise — 
She has risen — she sways. 
Fair Bell to our city hode joy and increase, 
And oh, may thy first sound he hallow' d to — Peace*! 

" In ' The Walk ' we have seen the progress of 
Society — in ' The Bell ' we have the Lay of the 
life of Man. This is the crowning Flower of that 
garland of Humanity, which, in his Culture-His- 
toric poems, the hand of Schiller has entwined. 
In England, i The Lay of the Bell ' has been the 
best known of the Poet's compositions— out of the 
Drama. It has been the favourite subject selected 
by his translators ; to say nothing of others (more 
recent, but with which, we own we are unac- 
quainted), the elegant version of Lord Francis 
Egerton has long since familiarised its beauties to 
the English public ; and had it been possible to 
omit from our collection a poem of such import- 
ance, we would willingly have declined the task 
which suggests comparisons disadvantageous to 
ourselves. The idea of this poem had long been 
revolved by Schiller +. He went often to a bell- 
foundry, to make himself thoroughly master of 
the mechanical process, which he has applied to 
purposes so ideal. Even from the time in which 
he began the actual composition of the poem, two 
years elapsed before it was completed. The work 
profited by the delay, and as the Poet is generally 
clear in proportion to his entire familiarity with his 
own design, so of all Schiller's moral poems this is 
the most intelligible to the ordinary understanding ; 
perhaps the more so, because, as one of his com- 
mentators has remarked, the principal ideas and 
images he has already expressed in his previous 
writings, and his mind, was thus free to give itself 
up more to the form than to the thought. Still we 
think that the symmetry and oneness of the com- 
position have been indiscriminately panegyrised. 
As the Lay of Life, it begins with Birth, and when 
it arrives at Death, it has reached its legitimate 
conclusion. The reader will observe, at the seventh 
strophe, that there is an abrupt and final break in 
the individual interest which has hitherto connected 
the several portions. Till then, he has had before 
him the prominent figure of a single man — the one 
representative of human life — whose baptism the 
Bell has celebrated, whose youth, wanderings, re- 
turn to his father's house,love,marriage, prosperity, 
misfortunes, to the death of the wife, have carried 
on the progress of the Poem ; and this leading figure 
then recedes altogether from the scene, and the 
remainder of the Poem, till the ninth stanza, losing 
sight altogether of individual life, merely repeats 
the purpose of ' The Walk,' and confounds itself in 



* Written in the time of the French War. 

t See Life of Schiller, by Madame von Wolzogen. 



illustrations of social life in general. The picture 
of the French Revolution, though admirably done, 
is really not only an episode in the main design, 
but is merely a copy of that already painted, and 
set in its proper place, in the Historical Poem of 
< The Walk.' 

" But whatever weight may be attached, whether 
to this obj ection or to others which we have seen else- 
where urged, the <non Ego paucis offendar maculis ' 
may, indeed, be well applied to a Poem so replete 
with the highest excellences, — so original in con- 
ception — so full of pathos, spirit, and variety in its 
plan — and so complete in its mastery over form 
and language. . . . Much of its beauty must 
escape in translation, even if an English Schiller 
were himself the translator. For that beauty 
which belongs to form — the ' curiosa felicitas ver- 
borum ' is always untranslateable. Witness the 
Odes of Horace, the greater part of Goethe's 
Lyrics, and the Choruses of Sophocles. Though 
the life of Man is pourtrayed, it is the life of a 
German man. The wanderings or apprenticeship, 
of the youth, are not a familiar feature in our own 
civilisation ; the bustling housewife is peculiarly 
German ; so is the incident of the fire — a misfor- 
tune very common in parts of Germany, and which 
the sound of the church-bell proclaims. Thus that 
peculiar charm which belongs to the recognition 
of familiar and household images, in an ideal and 
poetic form, must be in a great measure lost to a 
foreigner. The thought, too, at the end— the prayer 
for Peace— is of a local and temporary nature. 
It breathed the wish of all Germany, during the 
four years' war with France, and was, at the date of 
publication — like all temporary allusions— a strong 
and effective close, to become, after the interest of 
the allusion ceased, comparatively feeble and non- 
universal. These latter observations are made, not 
in depreciation of the Poem, but on behalf of it ; to 
show that it has beauties peculiar to the language 
it was written in, and the people it addressed, of 
which it must be despoiled in translation." 

Sir Edward Buiaver Lytton. 

Here we must bid farewell to Schiller : — he was 
a brave man, and a true poet. The question " was 
he a great poet?" we may defer until we have 
some clear definition of that word, great. If we 
were disposed to make a definition, we should say 
that every one is a poet in some degree, who pos- 
sesses the faculty of expressing the thoughts, emo- 
tions, and imaginations of the human mind in 
melodious and enthusiastic language, and that the 
greatness of a poet must be measured by the world 
over which he throws the light of his genius, or 
the extent of the sphere which he illumines. In 
this point of view, all are little, compared with 
Shakespeare. Wordsworth, with some deep, fine 
tones, but wanting variety of modulation ;— Byron, 
• with only one type for man, and another (scarcely 
another) for woman ; — Scott, in his metrical 
romances, confined to a few pleasing but super- 
ficial recollections of Scotland's olden time ; — 
Crabbe, with his stern pictures of poor earthly 
men, who seldom look up to the heaven above 
them ; — Moore, with sparkling pictures, and a few 
sweet, untrue sentiments ; — Mrs. Hemans, with 
her undying melancholy ; — Wilson, with his 
strains from dream-land ; — Proctor, Tennyson, 
Milnes, Lord John Manners, with his ballads of 



82 



UHLAND. 



" Old England;" and the Oxford Poets, with their 
rather sectarian visions of a Catholic Church : — 
all these are poets in their degrees ; but how- 
confined are the little worlds in which they move, 
in comparison with that world in which lived the 
genius of Shakespeare ! Yet we must he just 
towards modern times. There are idolaters of 
Shakespeare in our day; but, as we are not moved 
by Voltaire's superficial contempt, so we cannot 
wholly yield to Coleridge's enthusiastic preaching 
of Shakespeare's perfection. We can believe that 
the poet is called to do something more towards not 
merely portraying, but refining and elevating the 
real world, than Shakespeare ever did: the world of 
thought is wider than all who have lived in it ; 
and there is still room for an original poet, though 
Homer, Shakespeare, and Milton have lived. 

But we shall leave the question of Schiller's 
greatness unsettled, only saying, in conclusion, 
that, in his purpose and in his productions, he was 
greater than many who have worn the poet's 
laurel, both in ancient and in modern times. 



CHAPTER IX. 

UHLAND AND OTHER POETS. 

We must now make a descent from the heights 
occupied by Goethe and Schiller, and find amuse- 
ment among a lower order of poets. But let not 
the reader fear lest we should lead him down into 
the region of dulness and unrelieved mediocrity : 
if we find no great sublimity of purpose among the 
minor poets whom we are about to visit, we may 
meet with some pleasing traits and peculiarities. It 
will be well, on leaving the company of Schiller, to 
call upon Ludwig Uhland, another true poet of 
Suabia. He is not to be classed with the other 
poets who succeed him in this chapter : we rather 
indicate his true position by placing him between 
Schiller and the minor minstrels of Suabia. The 
world in which Uhland's poetry dwells is that of 
old traditions and faery legends. 

Uhland, like most of the German poets, has 
passed a quiet life. He was born at Tubingen in 
1787. In 1814 appeared the first collection of his 
poems, which passed through six editions. He 
was, for a short time, Professor of the German lan- 
guage at the university of Tubingen. His favourite 
study is old German minstrelsy, and he has writ- 
ten a commentary on the poems of the Minnesinger, 
Walter von der Vogelwaide. One of Uhland's 
best ballads is " The Minstrel's Curse," of which 
we give a fair translation *: — 

THE MINSTREL'S CURSE. 

In ancient times a castle stood in its pride of state and power, 

Which o'er the wide land shone afar to the blue sea's rocky 
shore. 

A verdant garden round it like a blooming wreath was 
thrown, 

Whence, in the rainbow hues of heaven, the leaping foun- 
tains shone. 

Here dwelt a haughty tyrant, rich in lands and trophied 

state : 
Here scowl'd he fiercely from his throne in mingled gloom 

and hate. 

* It appeared in Tait's Magazine (1844) with the signa- 
ture J. B. 



His very glance was fury, and his thoughts did terror 

brood ; 
He spoke, and torture clank'd her chains ; he wrote, and 

it was blood ! 

Yet once a pair of minstrels to his castle track'd their 

way: 
The one had golden curls like morn, the other locks of 

gray: 
The elder, harp in hand, upon a gallant courser rode, 
The other, fresh in youth, beside his loved companion 

strode. 

Then up the elder spoke, and said, " now, my son, pre- 
pare 

Our deepest song, our fullest song, with music rich and 
rare : 

Use all our skill united, every spell of grief and love — 

'Tis worth this day a trial yet the heartless king to move." 

Then up they stood, the minstrels, in that pillar'd hall of 

pride ; 
And, throned on high, the tyrant sat, his consort by his 

side : 
He, fierce in blazing splendour, as the blood-red northern 

light ; 
She, gentle as the moon at full, as sweet and lovely bright. 

Then smote the elder bard the chords with such a mastery, 
That richer, ever richer, rose the volumed music high ; 
And then, all heavenly clear, streamed out the younger 

minstrel's song, 
As if a quire of spirits bore the melody along. 

He sang of spring and pastoral days, of life and golden hours, 
Of freedom and the human heart, of truth and holiest 

powers ; 
He sang of all sweet things that claim with human hopes 

a part, 
All noble and all daring themes that elevate the heart. 

The banded courtiers, gathered round, have laid their scorn 

aside, 
The haughty warriors bow to God in self-abased pride ; 
The queen, dissolved in sadness, too, her gentle love con- 



She threw the younger bard a rose, a rose from out her 
breast. 

" Ye have seduced my people, and ye have bewitched my 
wife ! " 

The mad king shouted as he shook, 'mid his stormy pas- 
sion's strife. 

He cast his sword like lightning down : it smote the young 
man's side : 

The golden stream of song was stanch'd ; out gushed life's 
ruddy tide. 

As scatter'dby a storm, aside the trembling listeners start : 
The young man in his master's arms has died upon his 

heart ; 
Who wrapp'd him in his mantle close, and to his charger 

bore, 
And upright bound him on his steed, and left that castle 

hoar. 

And then stood still the gray-hair'd bard before the portal 
high, 

He raised his harp, that noble harp, the pride of minstrelsy ; 

Against a marble pillar dashed, he strewed its fragments 
all, 

Then shouted till his voice hath shook that fearful castle- 
hall. 

" Woe, woe to ye ! ye haughty towers — no sound of sweetest 

strain, 
Nor music, song, nor roundelay shall haunt your halls 

again ! 



UHLAND. 



83 



Nought, nought but sighs and groans, and tread of slaves 

in grim affright, 
'Till crushed in dust and ashes, ye shall feel the avenger's 

might ! 

" Woe, woe to ye ! ye gardens fair in spring-time's gentle 

light- 
Behold, by this disfigured dead to you unveiled to sight, 
By this shrink all your streamlets back, your fountains 

cease to play, 
For this be ye destroyed and waste, and desolate for aye ! 

" And woe to thee ! thou murderous king, the Minstrel's 

Curse shall lie 
On thee— on all thy jewelled state and wreaths of victory ; 
Thy name shall pass away, and, in the eternal night of 

death, 
Lost as thy latest gasp shall be, a hollow, parting breath ! " 

So spoke the minstrel old, and Heaven, approving, sealed 

the fate. 
The crumbling towers bow down to dust, the halls are 

desolate ; 
One pillar for awhile remained, a sign of glories past, 
Awhile until, in deepest night, it sank o'erwhelmed at last. 

Fdr aye the blooming gardens shall a wilderness surround ; 
No breath shall stir the shadows there, no spring refresh 

the ground. 
The king's dark name no song shall breathe, no glorious 

lay rehearse — 
Forgotten, sunk and lost for aye ! — So ran the 

Minstrel's Curse. 

J. B. 

THE WREATH. 

As a little maid plucked flowerets wild 

Adown a blooming lea, 
All wondrous bright came a lady forth 
From the shade of the green-wood tree. 

She greeted the little maid soft, and said, 

As she placed a wreath on her hair, 
" Though it blooms not yet it shall blossom well; 

So for ever the circlet wear." 

When the fair little maid was taller grown, 

And walked in the pale moonlight, 
And, tender and sad, wept tears alone, 

Then budded her garland bright. 

And when to his heart she was closely pressed, — 
To his heart whom she loved o'er all, 

In her garland green the buds were seen 
To change to flowerets small. 

And when, with a mother's joy, she saw 

On her lap a sweet child laid, 
'Mid the winding leaves of her fairy wreath 

"Was the golden fruit displayed. 

But when her true love was buried low 

In the cold and gloomy grave, 
Like an autumn-wreath o'er her darkened brow 

Did the fading foliage wave. 

Alas ! she also in death grew pale, 

Yet her fairy-crown she wore : — 
O wonder ! its flowers and fruits shone forth 

More brightly than before ! 

J. B. 

Uhland often paints a picture or suggests a story 



in a few simple words ; but many of his little songs 
seem to be without a purpose. For instance, we 
cannot see the purpose of the following : however 
many are buried, boyhood ought to be cheerful : — 

Yonder, see, upon the hill 
Shines the chapel — solemn — still — 
'Mid the valley, in his joy, 
Sings the merry shepherd-boy. 

Listen to the death-bell's toll — 
Hark ! they sing — " departed soul !" 
And the shepherd drops his lay, 
Hears the tolling far away. 

Mourners to his burial bear 
One as gladsome and as fair ; — 
Shepherd-boy, of careless glee, 
Soon the bell may toll for thee ! 

Here is another cabinet picture : — the robber 
steps out of the forest and is disarmed by the 
aspect of innocence : — 

The robber-chief, one April day, 
Looks out from the forest dim ; 

Fearless, on her woodland way 
Walks a maiden fair and slim 

" If, instead of flowers of spring," 

Said the forest-chieftain wild, 
" You bore the jewels of a king, 

You should pass unhurt, my child ! " 

Then he gazed, with musing face, 
While the maiden, with a song, 

Through the solitary place 
To her hamlet paced along ; 

'Till, at home, amid the bloom 
Of her garden-flowers she stood — 

Then he stepped into the gloom 
Of the silent fir-tree wood. 



THE SERENADE. 

" What music wakes me from my sleep 

Mother, who can they be 
That, in the night so dark and deep, 

Come here to sing for me ?" 

" I nothing hear, I nothing see — 

Your fancy was beguiled ; 
They have no serenade for thee, 

My poor, afflicted child." 

" It is no earthly music this ! 

It fills me with delight ! 
The angels call me to their bliss — 

Oh, mother dear — good-night !" 



SONG. 

I leave the cold, unfriendly town 
Where I have lived for many a day; 

I walk along the street alone, 
And no one follows on the way. 
g 2 



84 



UHLAND. 



To hold me back, they have not torn 
My coat, nor hurt a single shred ; 

There are no marks upon my cheek 
Of farewell kisses, deeply red. 

Not one has lost a moment's sleep 
To see me start before the sun ; 

Well ! let the rest their slumbers kee 
But one — my heart is sad for one ! ' 



THE CASTLE ON THE SHORE. 

Have you the castle seen 

That stands beside the sea ? 
The evening clouds hang o'er it 

A golden canopy. 

It might sink and disappear 

In the glassy flood below, 
Or, like a vision, melt 

In the rosy evening-glow. 

" Yes, I have seen the castle 
That stands upon the shore : 

The pale moon hangs above it, 
With gray mist covered o'er." 

And did the winds and billows 
Make a pleasant murmur there ? 

Or, from the inner hall, 
Stole music on the air ? 

" The winds and billows all 

In deepest rest were lying, 
And from the inner hall 

I heard the voice of sighing." 

And did you see there walking 

The king beside his queen ? 
Their robes of purple flowing, 

And crowns of golden sheen ? 

And did you see beside them 

Their virgin-daughter fair, 
As beautiful as morning, 

With golden beaming hair ? 

" I saw the royal parents 

With mourning covered o'er ; 

No golden crown was shining — 
Their daughter is no more !" 

But here is a strain of u a higher mood." The 
mysticism of the following poem is of an exquisite 
quality. It breathes of seclusion and solemnity. 
If the reader has ever been mystical and poeti- 
cal enough to wander through the woods, and, 
coming to some solitary woodland dell, bathed in 
evening's purple light, has heard the far-off tolling 
or pealing of village bells, calling up visions of 
secluded spots of sanctity where creatures not all 
of the earth meet to celebrate their devotions, he 
will understand the dream-like beauty of the fol- 
lowing verses : — 

THE LOST CHURCH. 

In the deep forest, far away, 

The wanderer hears the sound of bells : 
Whence comes the music none can say, 

And scarcely one old legend tells. 



It cometh from the old church gray 
That lies in deep, unbroken calm, 

Where hundreds went, of yore, to pray, 
Or joined to raise the holy psalm. 

I went into the wood to pray, 

From every path I wandered wide ; 
For freedom from this evil day, 

For rest and sanctity I sighed. 
The music from the ancient tower 

Came, soothing, through the forest air, 
And rose and swelled with greater power 

As higher rose my soul in prayer. 

And, as I listened to the sound, 

It charmed my spirit with its flow ; 
I seemed to tread on holy ground, 

Like those a hundred years ago : 
I lived as in the ancient day, 

The present world was all forgot, 
As, o'er a cloud of misty gray, 

I looked and saw the sacred spot. 

All round it shone the heavenly blue, 

And over it the sun was beaming, 
Its windows, rich with golden hue, 

And snowy pinnacles were gleaming ; 
Bright, glistening clouds were o'er it spread, 

Like glorious wings uplifted high, 
And 'mid the angels raised its head 

The spire that melted in the sky. 

The bells, of sweetest, soothing tone, 

Make holy music in the tower ; 
To some celestial wind alone 

They swing, unmoved by human power. 
A gentle, reverent light is shed 

On every saintly nook around ; — 
With trembling step and drooping head 

I trod upon the holy ground. 

Within the venerable shrine 

How beautiful the softened light ! 
The windows, many-coloured, shine 

With martyr-figures richly dight. 
I see, as in a holy dream, 

Old, saintly men kneel down to pray, 
And consecrated virgins gleam 

Along the aisles in white array. 

The solemn glory of the shrine, 

As at the altar-steps I kneeled — 
The sounds of harmony divine 

Can never be in words revealed. 
He who would learn these things must go 

Far in the forest lone to pray, 
And follow well the sounds that flow 

From the old church-tower far away. 

Uhland leads us upon enchanted ground. Here 
we have the knight Harald, with all his company, 
surrounded by faery spells in the moon-lit forest : — 



HARALD. 

Before his warlike company 

Rode Harald, hero bold, 
They travelled through the forest wild, 

In moonlight still and cold. 



UHLAND. 


85 


Their banners, won in many a fight, 

Were waving in the air ; 
Their battle-songs were echoed back 

From mountains bleak and bare. 


" King Charles, my honoured brother still ! 

Alas, I fled from thee ! 
For love I left thy princely court, 

And thou art wroth with me. 




But what a rustling in the wood ! 

What wondrous shapes are these, 
That fall from clouds or rise from floods, 

And hover mid the trees ! 


" Milon ! my husband dear ! 

The waters swallowed thee — 
For love I left all other joys ; 

Yet love has fled from me ! 




They scatter flowers around the band, 
Sing soft as whispering reeds, 

And dance amid the warlike men, 
And spring upon their steeds ; 


" Come hither, Roland, darling boy, 
I '11 clasp thee to my heart ; 

My love, my pride is all in thee — 
My sole delight thou art !" 




They fold the knights in soft embrace, 

And hold them gently bound, 
Then take their swords, and from their steeds 

Entice them to the ground. 


King Charles, within the gilded hall, 

Sat down to royal fare, 
And waiters served up rosy wine 

And dainty dishes there. 




No iron weapons here avail 
Against the elfin band ; 

The warlike company are charmed 
Away to fairy-land. 


And every heart was gladden' d there 

With music bold and brave : — 
\ Alas ! the music could not cheer 
t. The lonely forest-cave ! 




And only Harald stays behind, 

Impervious to the spell ; 
From crown to sole his knightly form 

Is clothed in armour well. ""' ^. 


J And in the palace outer-court 
'. ■". jjf Sat beggars blithe and gay, 
' J Who loved far more the meat and drink 
/ Than all the minstrels' play. 




His warriors all are charm' d away — - "* 
Their swords and shields lie idle ; * 

Their steeds, all riderless, run wild, 
And snap the flowing bridle. 


The King look'd, through the open door, 

Upon the beggars there ; 
And from the ragged crowd came forth 

A stripling bold and fair. 




In sorrow Harald rode away 

To find the forest's side, 
He rode alone, through moonlight pale, 

Amid the forest wide. 


The boy was clad in motley rags, 

But had a noble face ; 
He pushed his way among the crowd, 

To reach the dining-place. 




The sound of falling water comes, 
Right welcome, to his ear ; 

He takes his helmet off, and drinks 
Beside the streamlet clear. 


He stepp'd into the princely hall 

As careless as in play, 
Thence took a dish of dainty meat- 

And carried it away. 




But, soon as he has stilled his thirst, 
His feet he cannot keep ; 

He sinks upon a rocky seat, 
Fast bound in charmed sleep. 


Then thought the King, " A daring trick !" 

As on the boy he gazed ; 
But silently he let him go — 

His courtiers were amazed. 




And there he sleeps, upon that stone, 

A hundred years away — 
His head reclining on his breast — 

His hair and beard are gray. 


A little while had pass'd away — 

Again the boy came up, 
Even to the place where sat the King, 

And seized the royal cup. 




When lightnings flash and thunders roll, 
And all the woods have roared, 

He startles, in his long, long dream, 
And grasps his idle sword. 


" Ha !" cried the King, " the trick is bold ; 

You little, daring thing!" 
But Roland held the golden cup 

And looked up at the King. 




Here is a ballad sung with a noble simplicity : — 
YOUNG ROLAND. 


The King, at first, looked dark enough, 
Then laugh' d in merry mood : — 

" You walk into my gilded hall 
As if into a wood. 




The Lady Berta, in the cave, 

Deplored her bitter lot ; 
Her darling Roland, glad and brave, 

Was playing near the spot. 


" You take the dainty dishes, boy, 
Like apples from a tree, 

And wine as you would water take 
From any fountain free ! " 





86 PFITZER. 


" The country maid may water drink, 


" For he shall grow up like the King, 


On apples she may dine ; 


A hero in his day, 


My mother must have royal fare 


And banners many-colour'd, bring 


And drink the rosy wine." 


From vanquish'd lands away; 


" Ha ! is she then a nohle dame ? 
Where lives she ? — tell me where. 


" Shall take the spoils from many kings, 
With strong and daring hand, 


She has a castle, I suppose, 


And riches, honour, and renown 


And many servants there ! 


Win for his mother-land ! " 


" Tell me who is her chamberlain, 




Who is her butler, tell." 


— ♦ 


" My right hand is her chamberlain, 




My left hand serves as well." 


On account of the absence of exciting political 




discussion, literary matters, even trifles, are treated 


" Who is the warder on her tower ? " 


by German journalists and critics in a style 


" My eyes have that employ." 


sometimes ludicrously solemn. Thus we have 


" Who is the minstrel of her court ? " 


read a serious argument concerning the existence 


" My mouth," replied the boy. 


or non-existence of a Suabian School of Poetry, of 




which Uhland is supposed to be the master. The 


" Your lady has a servant brave, 


fact is, that such a school, like our famous " Lake 


In motley livery dight ; 


School," invented by the Edinburgh Reviewers, 


For like a rainbow is your dress, 


never really existed ; but a few young Suabians 


You little, daring wight. 


who wrote verses, Schwab, Kerner, Pfitzer, and 




Morike, were thus classed together by some of 


" Sure, such a noble dame as yours 


their critics. 


The King must long to see : — 
Three gentlemen, and ladies too, 
This lady bring to me ! " 


Gustavus Schwab, who has written several his- 


torical and legendary ballads, was born at Stuttgart, 


and is still, we believe, a preacher in his native 


Young Roland, with the golden cup, 


place. 


Walked quickly from the court, 


Gustavus Pfitzer is the author of several 


And knights and ladies followed him — 


pleasing poems, and has made some translations 


(The King would have his sport.) 


from Byron and Bulwer. He was born at Stutt- 




gart in 1809, and lives there still, devoted to 


Then in a little time, return'd, 


literature. 


The knights and ladies came, 




And with them walk'd into the court 




The royal, banish' d dame. 


THE GARDEN BY THE CHURCHYARD. 


" Good heavens ! who comes?" the King exclaim'd, 


I wander'd, when a playful boy, 


In strangely-altered mood ; 


Within a garden green, 


" And have I mock'd, in open hall, 


The garden by the churchyard lay 


My own — the royal blood? 


With but a wall between. 


" Good heavens ! my sister Berta, pale, 


And oft, in fear, I stood to see 


In pilgrim's mantle gray, 


The mourners' solemn tread ; 


To come into my royal court 


The gloomy music of the bell 


In beggarly array!" 


Was o'er the garden spread. 


Then Berta, speechless, faint, and pale, 


And then upon my young life fell 


Beside his feet fell down : 


A sorrow dark and dull ; 


The royal anger rose again, 


I hardly dared to wander in 


His forehead wore a frown. 


Our garden beautiful. 


And Berta kneel' d upon the ground 


All night before my inward eye 


Amid the gazing ring, 


The long, black funeral pass'd, 


While Roland, with a fearless brow, 


And the slow death-bell's heavy tones 


Said " Uncle," to the King. 


Came moaning on the blast. 


Then spoke the King, with milder tone, 


Nor summer flowers, nor autumn fruit, 


" Rise, Berta! tremble not ! 


Could charm my grief away, 


Since, for the sake of this brave boy, 


And through the gentle voice of love 


Our quarrel is forgot !" 


I heard the funeral lay. 


Then up rose Berta, in her joy, 


But now, amid the mourning train, 


" Thanks, brother ! thanks !" said she ; 


In priestly, white array, 


" And this brave boy shall pay you well 


To that old churchyard, dreaded once, 


For all your grace to me ! 


I walk along the way. 



KEENER.— ZIMMERMANN. 87 


All childish fears are hanish'd now ; 




For in that place of hones, 


Justinus Kerner has been more celebrated (as 


The image of a garden shines, 


he deserves to be), as a Visionary and a Mes- 


"With flowers ahout the stones. 


merist, than as a Poet. He wrote a book with 




the alarming title of " Incursions from the Ghostly 


No sorrow casts upon the grave 


World into the Sphere of Human Life." That he 


Its shadow dark and deep, 


seriously believes in his own revelations we can 


The cypresses that yonder wave 


hardly imagine ; for in some of his prose-writings 


Invite to soothing sleep. 


he shows a vein of comic humour. There is no 




remarkable originality in his poems ; but we give 


I tread the floor where death has been, 


one, which the reader will, perhaps, think as good 


Or stand beside the grave — 


as a dozen of the same character : — 


My soul is in the better land, 




Where flows the living wave. 






THE WATER-SPRITE. * 


And when the bell must toll for me, 

That sadden' d once the air, 
How sweet amid the saints to be, 


In the mild-beaming, blossoming month of May, 


The maidens of Tubingen dance and play. 


In God's own garden fair ! 


They danced one eve, as the day grew pale, 




Round the old lime in the Neckar vale. 


THE ANGEL OF PITY. 


> 




There came a young stranger, proudly arrayed, 


When Eve and Adam first had sinn'd, 


And led to the dance the fairest maid. 


And Nature, in her grief, turned pale, 




While through her woods, and deepest caves, 


To the dance as the maiden, deep-blushing, he led, 


Sounded a melancholy wail ; 


A sea-green chaplet he placed on her head. 


With sorrow on their faces, fled 


" Young stranger ! why is so chilly your arm ?" 


The angels from the earth away ; 


— In the depths of the Neckar it is not warm. 


Before the throne of God in heaven, 


They spread themselves in bright array. 


" Young stranger ! why is your hand so white ?" 


But then said one, with downcast look — 


— In the water the sunbeams lose their might. 


" How sad for me is heaven's own light, 




While man below, my brother bom, 


He leads down the dance, far away from the tree : 


Weeps loud in sin and sorrow's night ! 


— " List, stranger ! my mother is calling for me." 


" To help my brother in his grief, 


He leads her along by the Neckar's side — 


I leave this Paradisian glow ; 


" Oh leave me, leave me !" the maiden cried. 


I leave these plains of light and joy, 




And journey to the land of woe." 


He clasps her, and presses her close to his side — 




" Fair maid ! thou shalt be the Water-sprite's bride." 


He spoke, and rais'd his eyes to see 


If Heaven allow'd his chosen part — 
A beam from God's eternal love 
Fell, glowing, on his gentle heart. 


They dance till they come to the Neckar's brink — 
" Oh father ! Oh mother !" she cries as they sink. 


And, as he came to earth below, 


To his hall of crystal he leads her pale — 


His outward beauty felt decay ; 


" Adieu ! Oh, my sisters in yonder green vale ! " 


Touch'd by the breath of sin and woe, 




His heavenly glories fade away. 




His angel-robes were faded soon, 


Zimmermann is the writer of the following 


Tainted by earth's unholy air ; — 


poem : — 


Unknown, unhonour'd, through the land 


COUNT EBERHARD. 


He walks among the sons of care. 






Four Counts together sat to dine, 


He goes to comfort sinful souls, 


And, when the feast was done, 


To lead the weary to their rest, 


Each, pushing round the rosy wine, 


And bring the exiled, wandering sons, 


To praise his land begun. 


Home to a pitying Father's breast. 




When all whom he can find and save, 


The Margrave talk'd of healthful springs, 


Are lodged in Paradise above, 
He comes, with angel-glory crown'd, 
Back to his Father's House of Love. 


Another praised his vines ; 
Bohemia spoke of precious things 
In many darksome mines. 


His work is done ! he pours his joy 


Count Eberhard sat silent there — 


In showers of tears, and goes to rest — 


" Now, Wurtembcrg, begin ! 


Best-loved of all the sons of light ! — 


There must be something good and fair, 


Upon the eternal Father's breast. 


Your pleasant country in !" 



88 



MOSEN.— REIN1CK— HALIRSCH. 



" In healthful springs and purple wine " — 

Count Eberhard replied — 
" In costly gems, and gold to shine, 

I cannot match your pride. 

( ' But you shall hear a simple tale : — 

One night I lost my way 
Within a wood, along a vale, 

And down to sleep I lay. 

" And there I dream' d that I was dead, 

And funeral lamps were shining 
With solemn lustre round my head, 

Within a vault reclining. 
* 

" And men and women stood beside 

My cold, sepulchral bed ; 
And, shedding many tears, they cried, 

' Count Eberhard is dead ! ' 

" A tear upon my face fell down, 

And, waking with a start, 
I found my head was resting on 

A Wiirtembergian heart ! 

" A woodman, 'mid the forest-shade, 

Had found me in my rest, 
Had lifted up my head, and laid 

It softly on his breast !" 

The Princes sat, and wondering heard, 

Then said, as closed the story, 
" Long live the good Count Eberhard — ■ 

His people's love his glory!" 

Julius Mosen was born in 1803, in a little 
village among the woodland solitudes of Saxony, 
and is the writer of several considerable poems. 



THE TRUMPETER AT KATZBACH. 



Upon the field at Katzbach, 
The dying trumpeter lay, 

And from his side the life-blood 
Was streaming fast away. 

His deadly wound is burning, 

And yet he cannot die, 
'Till his company returning, 

Bring news of victory. 

Hark ! — as he rises, reeling 
Upon the bloody ground, — 

Hark ! — o'er the field is pealing 
A well-known trumpet's sound. 

It gives him life and vigour ; 

He grasps his horse's main ; 
He mounts, and lifts his trumpet 

To his dying lips again. 

He gathers all his strength, 
To hold it in his hand, 

Then pours, in tones of thunder, 
" Victoria " o'er the land. 

" Victoria !" sounds the trumpet- 
" Victoria !" all around — 

" Victoria!" — like loud thunder 
It runs along the ground. 



And in that thrilling blast 
The trumpeter's spirit fled ; 

He breathed in it his last, 
And from his steed fell dead. 

The company returning, 

Stood silent round their friend — 
" That," said the brave Field-Marshal, 

— " That was a happy end !" 



Many of the minor poets are so much alike in 
their topics and style, that no particular order 
seems necessary in noticing them. The following 
verses are by Reinick : — 



THE RETURN. 

When one returns, with hopeful tread, 
From travel to his place of birth, 

And finds his dearest maiden dead — 
That is the greatest woe on earth ! 

One bright and early sabbath-day, 

I came into my native place ; 
Long had I carried, far away, 

The memory of one lovely face ! 

I stepp'd into the church, to see 

The spot where first that face I saw ; 

The organ's solemn harmony 

Poured thrilling tones of love and awe. 

" And here," I whispered, " kneels in prayer 
That maiden, and for me she prays ;" 

I moved with silent footstep there, 
And hardly dared around to gaze. 

Then suddenly (I did not know 

Why seem'd the church so sad and dim), 
The choir began, with voices low, 

To sing an old funereal hymn. 

Amid the mourners on I press'd, 
And to the burial-chancel came : — 

There stood the bier, with roses dress'd, 
And on the coffin was her name ! 



We know Halirsch only as the writer of a few 
poems, from which we select the following : — 

THE WATCHMAN ON THE TOWER. 

Here is my home for many years, 

On this old haunted tower, 
With this wide world around me spread, 

In sunshine and in shower. 

Spring, summer, and the harvest brown, 

Roll round from year to year : 
However warm and green below, 

'Tis always winter here. 

A sea of air around me flows, 

The wild crow is my guest ; 
The tempest comes to make me sport, 

And shakes me in my nest. 



HALIRSCH.—MAX VON OER. 



The life of all that live helow, 

Has no delights for me ; — 
My mother gave me, soon as horn, 

To hear this destiny. 

And, when a hoy, I oft look'd up 
And long'd my doom to hrave — 

My father, one day, said to me, 
" 'Tis lonely as the grave ! 

" Yet, there the soul is nearer heaven 
Than those who dwell helow ; 

And rest is there, while in the vale 
Are many sounds of woe." 

Then I resolved to leave the vale, 
Where men must mourn and die, 

And, like the soaring eagle, make 
My dwelling in the sky. 

And yet I long'd, in sunny spring, 
When flowers hegin to blow, 

And all the mountain-tops are hlue, 
To visit them helow. 

But when my mother follow'd soon, 

My father to the tomb, 
And the hrown earth closed over them, 

And buried them in gloom, 

I saw there was no rest below, 
Life cannot long be bright ; 

I felt that it was well to be 

Here, nearer heaven's clear light. 

Since then the storms of many years 

Have beaten on my face, 
Yet, I have never long'd to leave 

This solitary place. 

This clear keen air refreshes me, 
The cold winds make me strong ; 

I feel I could not breathe below, 
I 've lived aloft so long. 



THE WANDERING MUSICIAN. 

Where roll loud rivers, and where streamlets glide, 

Where eagles build, and where blue violets hide, 

'Mid dark old firs in legendary vales, 

In rosy bowers where lovers tell their tales, 

Where mossy ruins tell of old decay, 

And where the church-bells hail a wedding-day, 

Throughout the world, wherever men abide, 

Wherever life and death flow side by side, 

There, with his harp, the wandering minstrel wends, — ■ 

His father-land the world, and all mankind his friends. 

Sometimes upon the hill, in evening's glow, 
He stands and gazes o'er the vale below ; 
Sometimes in moonlight, in the churchyard gray, 
He stands and chants some old funereal lay ; 
Then, in the morning, at the marriage-rite, 
He strikes his harp, and pours out his delight. 

In some old minster, while the organ rolls, 
He moves and elevates the listening souls ; 



Then, in the vale, 'mid youths and maidens gay, 
He leads their dances with a merry lay. 
With every feeling th,at the heart can know, 
His songs of many seasons overflow, 
And every voice of life, along his way, 
Wakes from his harp-strings some attendant lay : 
The world, with all its scenes of joy and pain, 
Melts, as he sings, in one melodious strain. 

The following ballad is by Max Von Oer :- 



THE FORGET-ME-NOT. 

Sir Conrad rode through the forest green — 
Why wears he, in sunshine, a clouded brow ? 

" My lance is right trusty, my sword is keen, 
But my heart never thrill' d. with a tender vow. 

" I call on, for challenge, no fair lady's name, 

When I ride in the tourney, or dash in the fight ; 

No true-love exults in my wide-spreading fame — 
Ah ! well may they call me the silent knight !" 

As musing he journeyed, a maid young and fair 
Walk'd up, by the brook, on the narrow way, 

With eyes of deep blue, and bright golden hair : 
It flow'd in the wind on that fortunate day. 

Sir Conrad look'd long — such a beautiful face 
It was wondrous to meet in that lonely place ! 

" Good morning, fair maiden ! my journey would be 
A happy one, bless'd with a kind word from thee !" 

" Brave knight ! if kind wishes or words from me 
Can prosper your journey, then so let it be ! 

May your bosom be light, and your fortune be bright!" 
" Fair lady ! then let me be your true knight I " 

She gather'd and gave him a little blue flower — 
On his helmet he placed the " Forget-me-not ;" — 

" O well I'll remember this fortunate hour, 
And the face I have seen in this lonely spot !" 

Now the Princess of Denmark had sent through the 
land, 

A challenge brave knights to the tourney to call ; 
And the prize of the combat, her own fair hand, 

Shall belong to the bravest among them all ! 

And there came the knight with the little blue flower — 
In his helmet, a faded " Forget-me-not ; " 

He fought not for fame, nor for riches and power, 
But for her whom he met in that lonely spot. 

He thought of her words, and was valiant and true ; 

He rode through the lists as a victor that day; 
And the fame of the knight with the flow'ret blue, 

Was spread through the crowd in the minstrel's lay. 

They led to the Princess the warrior brave, 
But downcast before her Sir Conrad stood : — 

" Sir Conrad ! look up, as you look'd when I gave 
The little blue flower by the stream in the wood." 

He look'd up, and thus said that lady fair, 

With the deep blue eyes and the golden hair, — 

" I wish'd for your journey a fortune bright — 
Here I give you my hand, my own true knight !" 



90 



STOBER.— EICHENDORFF. 



It is only fair to give some specimens of the 
legends and poems of Catholic Germany. The 
following is hy Stober : — 



ST. CECILIA. 

The holy maid, Cecilia, 

Came, as a pilgrim, down the Rhine, 
And people followed on the way, 

To kiss her garment's hem divine ; 
A gentle sound of music flowed, 

Like fragrance, from her beauteous frame ; 
Prayers followed her along the road, 

And songs awoke where'er she came. 

Once, at the hour of evening's glow, 

Within a hamlet lone she stay'd ; 
A poor musician, in his woe, 

Came praying to the holy maid ; 
And in his trembling arms he brought 

His darling child — the boy was dumb — 
And thus for aid the father sought :— 

" Cecilia, let thy pity come ! 

" A poor musician, holy maid, 

Brings hither, see, his poor dumb boy ; 
O saint of music ! give us aid — 

Thy power with heaven for us employ ! 
A blessing from thy gentle hand 

Can loose his tongue and make it free — 
Dissolve the spell — untie the band, 

And thine shall be his melody !" 

And, as he gazed upon her face, 

His earnest look his faith confess'd ; 
Then stoop'd Cecilia, full of grace, 

And took the boy upon her breast. 
And thus she stood, in evening light, 

With golden glory on her head, 
And heavenly radiance, calm and bright, 

Upon her glowing face was shed. 

Then turn'd the silent boy and press'd 

Upon her rosy lips a kiss — 
Cecilia clasped him to her breast — 

Tbe father stood in silent bliss — 
And at that kiss the spring of song 

Was open'd and flow'd forth in lays : 
Amid the wonder of the throng, 

The dumb boy sang the virgin's praise ! 

Tbe dumb boy praised Cecilia's might, 

With angel-voice so sweet and clear ; 
The father trembled with delight, 

The multitude bowed down in fear. 
All through the land the marvel came, 

And all would learn the dumb boy's lay ; 
And of that wondrous kiss, the fame 

Is told among us to this day ! 

German poets are fond of quiet, dreamy scenery, 
as in the following verses by Eichendorff : — 

THE STILL GROUND. 

The moonlight overspreads 

The valley's silent ground, 
The streamlet through the hollow 

Flows without a sound. 



And on the rocky side, 

The fir-trees, dark and high, 
Look down into the lake, 

That seema another sky. 

And yonder lies a boat, 

With no ripple in its wake; 
It seems but half-afloat, 

Half-sunken in the lake. 

The water-sprite sits yonder 

Upon a mossy stone, 
Some dreamy ballad singing — 

She thinks she is alone. 

And as she sings her carol, 

The trees and silver stream 
Murmur and rustle softly, 

As in a moon-lit dream. 

I stand in fearful silence, 

Till over wood and hill 
The morning-bells are chiming, 

And break the dreamy still. 

Had not the sound of bells 

Awoke the dream to chase, 
I never could have left 

That still, enchanted place. 

There is one ballad by Eichendorff, which has 
pleased us well by its picturesque scenery. The 
Jacobin Captain rests in a little churchyard in 
Britany. Raving in the fever of his wound, he 
confesses that he had burned his own father's 
house. At night, he stands on the sea-shore and 
witnesses a strange spectacle. A priest comes 
over the quiet sea in a little shallop lit with tapers, 
and a congregation of worshippers come in their 
boats and perform their devotions on the waves, 
as they dare not worship in their church. The 
Jacobin Captain recognises his own father in the 
person of the priest, and, overcome with the 
amazement, falls and dies upon the shore. Here 
is the ballad : — 

THE PRIEST AND THE JACOBIN. 

The blooming hills of Britany 

Were laved by gentle seas ; 
A little church stood peacefully 

Between two ancient trees. 

The corn-fields, and the green woods wide, 

Were bright in sabbath's glow ; 
But not a bell dare o'er the tide 

Its solemn music throw. 

For o'er the churchyard's shady ground 

The Frenchmen's standard waves ; 
Their steeds are cropping, all around, 

The daisies from the graves. 

Upon the cross, in mockery, 

Canteens and sabres hung ; 
Instead of solemn litany, 

The " Marseillaise " was sung. 

Sore wounded leaned the Captain there 

Against an ancient tree, 
And faintly look'd, with feverish stare, 

On sultry land and sea; 



KORNER. 



in 



And talk'd, as in a fever-dream — 

" Our castle by the lake — 
I fired it ! — what a fearful gleam ! — 

It burns for freedom's sake ! 

" I see my father — through the rings 

Of fire I see him there — 
He stands upon the tower, and swings 

His banner in the air ! 

" I see the standard catch the flame, 

Again I see my sire, 
As, holding still the shaft, he came 

Down through the blazing fire ! 

" He looked at me, but nothing said — 

I had no heart to slay — 
The castle fell — my father fled — 

He 's now a priest, they say ! 

" And since that night, in all my dreams 

I hear the loud bells ring, 
And see, amid the fiery streams, 

The cross — that hated thing ! 

" But soon, no church-bell through the land 

Shall break the still of night ; 
No cross upon the earth shall stand, 

A sign of priestly might ! 

" And yonder lowly church-walls there 
(We '11 tear them down to-night !) 

Shall sound no more with psalms and prayer 
— We come to let in light / " 

At night, when woods and waves were still, 

And only when he spoke, 
The sentinel upon the hill 

The dreamy silence broke. 

The Captain stood beside the sea — 

A soft gray cloud arose, 
Upon the waves — what can it be ?— 

And now it spreads and grows ! 

And see, amid the misty air, 

A tiny twinkling light- — 
Some little star has fallen there, 

Or lost its way to-night. 

But see, along the quiet shore, 

Where sleep the silent waves, 
Dark moving figures, more and more, 

Creep from the rocky caves ; 

And boats are push'd into the sea, 
Row'd softly through the night ; 

The mark they steer for seems to be 
That little twinkling light ! 

The light comes nearer now, afloat, 
The rowers all have found it — 

It is a little fisher-boat, 

With tapers burning round it. 

And see, within the shallop stands 

An old man tall and gray, 
With flowing hair and folded hands, 

— A Priest in full array. 



And round the floating altar, see, 
The boatmen bow their heads : 

The old Priest o'er the company 
A solemn blessing sheds. 

The sea was still, and every breeze — 

In marvellous array, 
Within their boats, on bended knees, 

The congregation lay. 

And now, the cross within his hand, 

Amid the taper's glare, 
The Captain sees the old Priest stand — 

" 'Tis my old father there I " 

Said he, as, with a sudden prayer, 
He reel'd and fell and swoon'd, 

While life's blood o'er the shingle there 
Was streaming from his wound. 

The Jacobin soldiers on the shore 
Came, found their Captain dead — 

Then — death behind and death before, 
Through all the land they fled. 

Like wither'd leaves in autumn's breeze, 
They fled and pass'd away — 

That little church between the trees 
Is standing at this day ! 



CHAPTER X. 

KORNER HEINE — GRABBE — CHAMISSO— GAUDY. 

Theodore Korner was born at Dresden in 
1791. The circumstances of his education were 
highly favourable to the development of the poetical 
genius which he displayed in early life. In his 
seventeenth year he left his home, to devote him- 
self to the study of mining. In 1810 he went to 
the University of Leipsic, where he threw himself 
into the wild excesses and follies of the Burschen- 
schaft, and became so implicated with a disorderly 
band, of students, that he was obliged to leave the 
place. Soon afterwards, he went to reside in 
Vienna. Here he occupied his leisure with drama- 
tic productions, which show a remarkable ease and 
fluency of writing, but no depth of passion or know- 
ledge of human character. The principal of his dra- 
matic works are " Zriny," a tragedy derived from 
Hungarian history, and " Rosamund," founded on 
the story of our Henry II. In little more than 
the space of a year he wrote these plays, of consi- 
derable extent, with several other dramatic pieces : 
— " Expiation," " Hedwig," " Joseph Heiderich," 
and some short operas and comedies. They were 
produced too easily to be of any lasting value. 

But the sounds of war were now calling the 
German youth from quiet studies and amusements. 
Korner heard them in the midst of his theatrical 
pleasures at Viemia, and, in the spring of 1811, 
tearing himself away from flattering circumstances 
and kind friends, he joined a troop of volunteers, 
in which he was soon made lieutenant. Here 
he animated his youthful companions with martial 
lyrics, of which the most remarkable, his " Song 
of the Sword," was composed shortly before his 
death, which took place in a skirmish with the 
French. His comrades buried him near an oak- 



92 



HEINE. 



tree, on the way from Liibelow to Dreikrug, where 
there is now a monument to his memory. 

The interest has faded away from a hundred 
songs, called forth by awakening patriotism, in the 
time of the war, and Korner's lyrics must share 
in the neglect of their theme. 

Still the name of a young poet of noble mind 
and temper, who devoted his life to that which 
he believed to be the most sacred of interests, must 
be remembered with affection in his father-land. 



LUTZOWS WILD CHASE. 

What helmets are flashing along by the wood ? 

The trees and the greensward are shaking — 
Fast come the black company on like a flood ; 
Their deep horns are sounding, and chilling the blood — 

With terror the heart is quaking ! 
Who are the black horsemen who ride such a race ? 
That is Liitzow's wild and desperate chase ! 

See there in the valley they rush in the fight, 
Where sabres and helmets are clashing ; 

From their blades, as on helmets of steel they smite, 

Through the smoke of the battle there glistens a light, 
The sparks of our freedom are flashing. 

Who are the black horsemen who ride such a race? 

That is Liitzow's wild and desperate chase ! 

Who lies mid his foes on the battle-place ? 

On his pale brow the sunbeams quiver. 
Though no more he must join in the desperate chase, 
There is not a shadow of fear on his face, — 

For his country is free and for ever ! 
The bold and black rider has ended his race : 
That is Liitzow's wild and desperate chasej 



Henry Heine has gained his reputation more 
by his political and humorous essays, than by bis 
poetical productions- .He belongs to the class of 
negative writers and satirists, who declaim against 
all existing institutions, while the objects for 
which they contend are only vague generalities. 
Heine's writings are often humorous and piquant, 
but disfigured by the affectation of a coarse cyni- 
cism, and an irreverent temper which confounds 
together things sacred and profane. 

He is like a harlequin, who, rather than fail 
of attracting notice, will; daub his face with the 
coarsest pigments. He makes himself vile to be 
notable. He is aware of this, as he has assumed 
cap and bells, and styled himself arch-fool and 
jester for Germany. His jests and ironies are 
sometimes bitter, often foolish ; but we shall not 
meddle with them : they do no good. 

Heine's verse, as well as his prose, is often dis- 
figured by the coarsest sentiments and most irre- 
verent expressions, apparently thrown in with no 
other motive than to excite attention, by offending 
good taste. He affects an eccentricity and incon- 
gruity of ideas which soon becomes tiresome. To 
make sport of the fine sentimentahsm which over- 
spread reading Germany, after the publication of 
" The Sorrows of Werter," he calls up a troop of 
ghosts from a churchyard, to sing of all the sor- 
rows they endured for love : — among them, the 
ghost of an actor thus sings his story : — 



I once was a king on the boards, 

And could play well in Mortimer's part — 

I could say with effect, " O ye heavens ! " 
And sigh to perfection, " My heart ! " 

I played best in Mortimer's line — 

Maria, my partner, was fair ; 
But, in spite of significant hints, 

She would look on me but as a playei ! 

'Till, at last, at the end of the play, 

" Maria, you angel ! " I cried, 
And finished the act with a stab 

A little too deep in my side ! 

That Heine can sometimes write a striking 
laconic and pathetic stanza, several of the short 
poems in his " Book of Songs " sufficiently prove. 
For instance, the following simple verses are as 
spirited as anything to be found in all the poetry 
that has been devoted to Napoleon : — 



THE GRENADIERS. 

Two of Napoleon's Grenadiers 

Came from a Russian jail ; 
But, as they pass'd through Germany, 

They heard a dismal tale : 

That France, at last, had lost the day, 

That fortune had forsaken 
The army, once in proud array, 

And the Emperor was taken ! 

Then wept the two old Grenadiers 
To conquered France returning — 

Said one, when he had heard the news, . 
" How my old wound is burning ! " 

" Our game is lost ! " the other groaned — > 

" I would that I were dead ; 
But I have wife and child in France, 

And they must still be fed ! " 

" Who cares for wife and children now ? — 
Our standards are forsaken ! — 

Let wife and children go and beg — 
The Emperor is taken ! — 

" But, comrade, grant me one request — 

If on the way I die, 
Carry me home, and let my bones 

Beside French ashes he ! 

" And let my cross of honour hang 

Just here, upon my breast ; 
And put the musket in my hand ; 

Then leave me to my rest. 

" And like a sentinel in the grave, 

I '11 listen for the day, 
'Till I hear the galloping hoofs again, 

And the thundering cannon's bray ; 

" When rides the Emperor o'er my head, 

Believe me, I '11 be sure 
To spring up, shouting from the grave, 

With ' Vive l'Empereur ! ' " 



HEINE. 93 


The following simple ballad is out of Heine's 
general style : — 


" And near our house lived Margaret, 

Now buried in the clay — 
take this waxen heart, Mary ! 


THE PILGRIMAGE TO KEVLAAR. 


And drive my pain away ! 


I. 


" heal my wounded heart ! 


By the window stood the mother, 

On the bed her sick son lay ; 
" Come, William, rise and see 


Have pity on my case ! 
And I will sing for ever, 
Hail Mary, full of grace ! " 


The procession's long array." 




" I am so ill, my mother, 
I cannot rise and see ; 

The thought of Margaret buried 
Is evermore with me ! " 


The sick son and his mother 
Slept in the chamber there, 

Then came the Virgin Mary 
In silence through the air. 


" Rise, follow to Kevlaar, 
With book and rosary ; 

The holy Virgin there 

Will work a cure on thee." 


She bow'd down o'er the son, 

Her lily hand to lay 
All softly on his heart — 

Then smiled and pass'd away. 


On the churches flags were waving, 
Old psalms rose in the sky, 

At Cologne upon the Rhine, 
As the pilgrimage went by. 


The mother, in her dream, 
Saw all that happen'd there ; 

She woke, when sounds of life 
Broke on the morning air. 


The mother led behind, 

Her son, with faltering pace, 

And as they went, they sung, 
" Hail Mary, full of grace !" 


She rose to see the sleeper — 
Her only son was dead ! 

Upon his pallid cheeks 

Flicker'd the morning red. 


in 
The Virgin at Kevlaar 

Is in her best array ; 
For she has many sick 

And lame to cure to-day. 


The mother clasp'd her hands 
Above the dead boy's face, 

And sung, with fluttering voice, 
" Hail Mary, full of grace ! " 


Their offerings at her feet 
The crippled folk are laying, 

Of waxen hands and feet, 
For help and mercy praying. 


Here is a little gloomy picture of domestic 
misery : — 

THE PREACHER'S FAMILY. 


One brings a hand of wax — 
His palsied hand is sound ; 

One who brought a waxen foot 
Trips lightly o'er the ground. 


The pale half-moon of the autumn-night 
Looks out, the dismal clouds between 

The parsonage, and, white with stones, 
The churchyard, glimmer in her sheen. 


Some who crept along on crutches 
Can dance along the way ; 

Some who could not move a finger 
Can on the viol play. 


The mother in the bible reads, 

The son sits there with musing gaze 

The elder daughter, half-asleep, 

Yawns, as the younger daughter says : — 


The mother took a wax-light 
And shaped it to a heart : — 

" Son, take this to the Virgin ; 

She will cure your wounded part." 


" Ah God ! how slow the tedious days 
Pass by one in this lonely place ! 

Save when some dismal funeral comes, 
We never see a stranger's face ! " 


The sick son took the image 
And laid it on the shrine ; 

The tears dropp'd from his eyelids 
As he pray'd for help divine — 


The mother answers, as she reads — 

" You 're wrong, for only four have died 

Here, since we carried to his grave 
Your father there, the gate beside." 


" Hail, Mary, full of grace, 
heavenly Virgin pure ! 

Have pity, gentle Mary, 
On the sorrows I endure ! 


The elder daughter yawns and speaks : — . 

" I will not stay and hunger here, 
I know a young and noble lord 

Who'll keep me well on better cheer." 


" I lived with my mother 
At Cologne, upon the Rhine, 

Where a hundred holy churches 
And costly chapels shine ; 


At that the son laughs loud and says : 
" Three men are drinking at the Star, 

Who know the art of making gold — 
'Tis better, sure, than starving, far !" 



94 



GRABBE.— CHAMISSO. 



Then in his lean and hungry face 
His mother old her hihle threw — 

" You reprohate ! you '11 hreak my heart — 
You 7Z be a highway robber too ! " 

Then at the window came a noise — 
They look, and see a beckoning hand, 

And their dead father, looking in, 
In his black preacher's cassock stand. 

There is the true laconic and dramatic power of 
poetry in these few verses. They suggest a whole 
domestic history of the old preacher who died in 
poverty ; his widow, who was left with only her 
bible to console her ; the son made reckless by the 
want of any favourable prospect ; and the daughter 
ready to sell herself for gold ! The gloom and 
misery of the picture is perfect, and the ghost at 
the window seems in perfect keeping with the rest 
of the scene, for the misery of such a family was 
enough to call the dead up from his grave. 



GRABBE. 

If mere imagination constitutes a poet, every 
schoolboy is poetical when walking through a 
churchyard at midnight. Let those who love 
vague definitions (and many German writers are 
fond of them) dignify with the name of poetry 
everything that shows emotion and imagination, 
and represent a London tradesman as highly 
poetical when tossed on the Straits of Dover : 
they will also esteem Christian Grabbe, as seve- 
ral of his contemporaries have done, as a poet of 
the first class, because, to use the language of 
some rhapsodical critics, "his soul was a volcano," 
" his poetry was a lava-stream," "his imagination 
was Titanic," &c. &c. ! We must maintain that 
beauty, harmony, and truth are as essential to 
the poet's character as vigour of imagination, and 
accordingly we must throw aside all the rhapso- 
dical aclmiration bestowed upon Grabbe as of very 
little value. In the same style we estimate the 
greater part of Grabbe's productions. 

In his writings, as in his life, this young author 
showed vigour of imagination, violence rather than 
strength of expression (for strength requires mo- 
deration), wild and uncontrolled feelings, and con- 
summate had taste. 

A very few extracts will substantiate what we 
have said. One of Grabbe's characteristic poems 
is entitled tt Don Juan and Faust." Here Byron's 
loose hero and the absurd dupe of Mephistopheles 
meet together and contend for a lady — a certain 
Donna Anna. Don Juan is the roue sensualistic 
and practical ; Faust is the debauche intellectual 
and speculative : it is hard to say which is the 
more worthless and contemptible character. Faust, 
of course, sells himself to the demon Mephisto- 
pheles, and demands, as the price of a soul, a little 
" useful knowledge." 

This I demand — 
That you shall help me to unriddle man, 
Man and the world in which he dwells, their nature, 
Their aim and destiny, and show the path 
Where I may find my rest and happiness. 

Mephistopheles, in his reply, condemns all wild, 
indefinite, intellectual ambition, and recommends 



the example of the flippant sensualist, Don Juan. 
" If you would be happy," says the demon, " win 
Donna Anna ! " This Faust rejects as a con- 
temptible, low-minded proposition, and commands 
his familiar demon to accompany him in a rapid 
flight round the universe, — in pursuit of " useful 
knowledge," as we suppose. Meanwhile, the prac- 
tical Don Juan, — an Italian reprobate in contrast 
with the German Faust, — is winning the favour of 
Donna Anna, without the aid of any demon. That 
he can talk poetically is proved by his soliloquy, 
as he waits in the garden for Donna Anna : — 

The day is wonderfully beautiful ! 

Rome's old gray ruins glisten in its light, 

Like spirits glorified. Such autumn days 

Are only seen in Rome. Like the old Romans 

These fields in purple robes of victory 

Clothe themselves ere they die. All nature lies 

Spread like a golden frame — when will thy image, 

O lovely Donna Anna ! step into it ? 

Faust has returned, still unsatisfied, from his 
aerial tour round the world, and, yielding to the 
suggestion of Mephistopheles, carries away Donna 
Anna to a magically-built palace on the summit 
of Mont Blanc ! Here we have arrived at the 
climax of absurdity, and are glad to leave Don 
Juan, Donna Anna, and Faust, all in the care of 
Mephistopheles. If this is "poetry" and "fine ima- 
gination," as some German critics have said, then 
let us be condemned to prose and common sense. 



ADALBERT VON CHAMISSO. 

Chamisso is best known as the author of the 
extravagant story of the man who had lost his 
shadow — " Peter Schlemihl." By birth he was a 
Frenchman, but his family left France amid the 
troubles of 1790, and settled at Berlin. Here the 
young Chamisso entered into the military service 
of Prussia, in which he remained when his parents 
returned to their family residence in France. He 
left the army to devote himself to study, but his 
fife was unfortunate and without a plan. 

He complained bitterly in his day, as many do 
in our own, of the distractions of thoughts, creeds, 
and interests which separate men, and make one 
feel " lonely in a crowd." Says he, " I am a 
Frenchman in Germany, and a German in France, 
a Catholic among Protestants, and a Protestant 
among Catholics, a Philosopher among Pietists, 
and a Bigot among Freethinkers, a Jacobin among 
Aristocrats, and among Democrats one of the old 
regime : I am never in my right place." 

Chamisso attended a Russian expedition to the 
North Pole, and, after his return, settled in Berlin 
and devoted himself to literature. In connection 
with his friend Gaudy, he produced a translation 
of Beranger's songs. He died in 1839. 

Chamisso had a French partiality to tragic 
pictures, as we see in the following verses : — 

THE DYING LADY. 

In the tower the death-bell tolls — 

A grave is open to the sky — 
To your prayers, all sinful souls ! — 

Hear that tolling ! you must die ! 



CHAMISSO. 95 


Dying lies a lady fair, 


" I am not angry, as you deem ; 


Worn with crime still unconfess'd ; 


From anger I am far — 


Bitterly, in her despair, 


God bless you ! and some happier maid 


She wrings her hands, and smites her breast. 


Shall be your guiding star." 


By the hed her husband stands, 


" God bless thee too, kind-hearted maid, 


And coldly looks upon her face ; 


But tell your name to me — 


She turns to him, with folded hands, 


For oft, I know, in joy and woe 


To tell her sin, and sue for grace. 


My heart will turn to thee." 


" God pity me in my distress ! 


" My father calls me Beatrice — 


Forgive me, oh my husband too ! — 


His. hut is yonder, see ; 


None can tell my wretchedness — 


Good huntsman, if I am not bold, 


I broke the vow I made to you ! " 


Pray give your name to me." 


" Confidence should be repaid " — 


" Fair Beatrice, a happy name, 


Says the husband, cold and grave — 


Its worth I understand — 


" Let my confession too be made — 


My own is like the Duke's who rules 


You die of poison that I gave ! " 


O'er all Bohemia's land." 




" Your name is Huldreich ! well-deserved ; 


Here is a more pleasing ballad : — 


For gentle you must be — 




And came the Duke in all his pride, 




I still would turn to thee." 


DUKE HULDREICH AND BEATRICE. 






" I thought that joy would never come, 


Lord Huldreich of Bohemia 


To live and dwell with me — 


Was hunting on the hill ; 


But still it might, if love for love 


The peasant-maid spread linen white 


I now could win from thee." 


Beside the flowing rill. 






" Good huntsman, I believe you true, 
Your words I understand ; 


" Good hunter, you have wander' d far — 


How weary you must feel ! 


But I can never take a ring 
Save from my father's hand." 


Come, sit awhile, and take your rest, 


And share my humble meal." 




" Then lead me to your father's hut — 
I '11 ask him for your hand — 


" Thanks, friendly maid, with cheerful heart 


Your frugal store you share ; 


He shall not find a better son, 


My limbs are weary in the chase, 


In all Bohemia's land." 


My head hangs down with care.'" 






The proud companions of the chase 


" Does care pursue the merry chase, 


Came down to seek the Duke — 


The hunter in the wood ? — 


They found him with the peasant-girl — 


When care is on my father's face, 


A sight they could not brook ! 


My singing does him good." 






" Why scorn you thus the peasant-maid ? — 


" I hear no songs from gladsome hearts — 


Her fortune seems but small — 


Lonely, mid crowds, I sigh — 


But she shall be, ere morning dawns, 


No star has ever beam'd on me 


A Duchess o'er you all ! " — 


So brightly as your eye." 




" Does no one kindly look on you ? — 
Yet in your eye so clear, 




THE WIDOW'S PRAYER. 


I see a mild and friendly soul 


An old widow watches and prays alone, 


That no one needs to fear." 


In the deep dark night, by her lamp's pale light, 




" Lord, who the prayer of the widow dost hear, 


" They look not on me for my love, 


May his lordship be spared to rule over us here ! — 


No friendly face I see ; 


Thus soitow has taught me to pray." 


And, stood another in my place, 




Then none would care for me." 


The lord of the soil stands listening there, 




But cannot interpret the widow's prayer ; 


" Up, hunter, yonder winds your way, 


To enter the cottage he bows his head, 


No longer tarry here : 


And begs the old dame to explain what she said — 


My father is the only man 


" How has misery taught you to pray ? " 


Whom I must love and fear." 






" My lord, I had eight fine cows : one day, 


" Fair maid, and has a word of mine 


The great lord, your grandfather, took one away; 


Disturb'd your gentle breast ? 


The best of my cattle he carried from me, 


If from your vale you drive me forth, 


Nor cared for my age and my poverty — 


On earth where find I rest ? " 


Oh, sorrow has taught me to pray ! " 



96 



CHAMISSO. 



" I cursed him, my lord ('twas wicked and vain), 
As I afterward found to my sorrow and pain ; 
For he died, and your father ruled over the land, 
Who took two of my cows with a violent hand — - 
Oh sorrow has taught me to pray ! 

" I cursed him, (I own to your lordship's face), 
And he soon broke his neck in pursuing the chase; 
Then your lordship was heir to the property, 
And four of my cows you have stolen from me, 
And sorrow has taught me to pray. 

" If your son comes to rule in his father's hall, 
He will take the last cow that I have in the stall ; 
So I pray to the Lord, with fervour sincere, 
May your lordship be spared to rule over us here ! 
Thus sorrow has taught me to pray !" 



The following is a true German ballad, in both 
subject and style. The Journeyman, before his 
" Wanderjahre" (years of travel) are completed, 
returns to his former home, but finds that he has 
no home : he asks for his betrothed maiden, and 
learns that unkindness has ruined her — but let 
the ballad tell its own story ; it could not be told 
more simply and pathetically : — 



THE JOURNEYMAN'S RETURN. 

" Who makes at the door such a terrible din ? — 
My husband is out, and you cannot come in." 

" But if 'tis your son, who has wander'd so far, 
O mother, my mother, you '11 quickly unbar." 

" And why have you come home, my son, to-day ? 
Your journeyman's years have not yet pass'd away." 

" 'Tis foolish enough, but the farther I roam — 

mother, ne'er heard you of pining for home ? " 

" My husband, I fear, will not say 'tis well done. 
Alas ! I have married again, my son." 

" O mother, and why did you wed such a mate, 
That your son, coming home, must be turn'd from 
your gate ? " 

" Oh spare your poor mother, my son, my son, 
And leave God to judge me for what I have done." 

" O mother, but grant just a word to your son — 
Say, where is my Christel, my promised one ? " 

" My husband has been to the maiden severe ; 
He drove her away — she must not live here." 

" To drive from your door the bride of your son ! — 

1 leave God to judge you for all you have done. 

" I pined for my home, and the smile of your face : 
I come, and I find it an altered place. 

" I see that you cannot invite me to stay ; 

So again through the world I must wander away. 

" But whither ? ah mother, who cares where I roam ? 
Who cares if I never return to my home ? 



" Adieu, -".other ! give me your blessing — I go — 
And God may have pity on me in my woe ! " 

He turn'd from the home of his childhood his face, 
His mother stood trembling and dumb by the place. 

He went down the street in his misery lone, 

But beside the town-gate he stood still like a stone ; 

For he gazed on his Christel, with gloomy stare : 
She hung on the arm of a soldier there ! — 

As she saw the poor journeyman stand in the crowd, 
She covered her face, and wept aloud. 

And the soldiers laugh'd loudly to see them meet : 
They mock'd the poor girl in the open street ! 

The wanderer stood in his misery lone, 

He stared on her face, and stood still as a stone. 

He stood like a man who has seen the dead, 
Then dash'd on his way with a quicker tread. 

But whither he wander'd none surely can say, 
Though many a story is told of his way. 

So lonely and sad he was sent forth to roam, 
Perhaps God, in pity, has summon'd him home. 

His name as of one departed or lost, 

Has three times stood in the Weekly Post. 



THE THUNDER-STORM. 

See on his castle's battlements 
The gloomy monarch stand ; 

He looks with earnest brow, 
O'er his dark beclouded land. 

A thunder-storm is coming, 
The forests all have roar'd ; 

The king's right hand is grasping 
The handle of his sword. 

His left, from which the sceptre 
Has suddenly fall'n down, 

Still holds upon his forehead 
The heavy golden crown. 

His favourite lady holds 

The monarch's mantle fast : — 
" You loved me, mighty king, 

In the pleasant days gone past ! ' 

" Why talk of love this moment ? 

Now comes a sterner fate — 
A thunder-storm is lowering, 

My people rise in hate ! 

" I am no more a monarch, 
My sword has lost its power, 

The thunder-storm is growling, 
And fatal is the hour ! 

" Away all thoughts of pleasure ! 

My lady fair, away ! 
Rebellion's thunders mutter, 

My throne falls down to-day ! " 



GAUDY.—. 


RUCKERT. 97 




poets of India and Arabia : he will not go along 


GAUDY. 


with his times. The world of his poetry is but a 




little one, and, in a great measure, occupied by 


Gaudy was most remarkable in comic and sa- 


himself. He has a perfect command of the poetical 


tirical poetry ; but this is a department, (a low one 


resources of his language, and his versification is 


certainly) in which the Germans are no match for 


sweet and flowing ; but the merit of his poems 


the keen, biting, sarcastic humour of the English, 


consists so much in their form, that they will hardly 


or the lively comicality of the French. His serious 


bear translation. 


poems, of which his " Emperor's Songs " were the 




most successful, have little of distinctive character 




or interest. 


A POET'S UTOPIA. 


THE COOK'S ELEGY. 


I long to build a city fair 




Under heaven's serenest air, 


One Sunday only shines for me, 


Embosomed in a blooming wood, 


In two long weeks of drudgery, 


And laved by some transparent flood ; 


When will be snapt the iron yoke 


The focus whence life's gladdening beam 


In which the toiling cook must sigh ? 


Through all the land should freely stream ; 


And now, when pots are all cleaned out, 


Where life, as in a circle flowing, 


And pans and skillets burnished bright, 


From centre to circumference going, 


It rains down like a water-spout, 


Thence to the middle-point again 


And not a cab will come in sight ! 


Should flow as rivers to the main. 




Within the midst a kingly hand 


My new dress should come out to-day — 


Should hold in unity the land, 


(And mistress praised the bonnet's taste) 


A king with nobles round him spread, 


(One must submit to fashion's way) 


Like blossoms round a rose's head ; 


So very slender is the waist ! — 


While through the kingdom, every soul 


So buxomly the sleeves stand out ! — 


Should share the glory of the whole, 


(Rose-colour suits me well, they say) 


Contented but a leaf to be 


But down it pours a water-spout, 


Upon a healthy, blooming tree. 


And not a cab will come this way ! 


From the throne a blessing streaming, 




O'er the land the king's smile beaming, 


Is " Fair-hair " waiting in the park ? 


Joy to every home is bringing; 


He asked me for a rendezvous — 


Labour bears his burden singing; 


" Till nine o'clock," declared the spark, 


For every one throughout the land 


" I promise I will Wait for you ! " 


Gives every one a helping hand. 


For such a gold-fish, none can doubt 


Each is happy in his part ; 


'Tis worth one's while to spread a net ; — 


The reaper sings with merry heart, 


But down it pours a water-spout, 


And from the throne a lustre shines 


And not a cab has come up yet ! 


Upon the dresser of the vines. 




Then the gentle arts shall come 


I know he 's rich, (0 cruel rain !) 


And in my city find their home, 


That fine cravat ! the watch of gold ! — 


Not dwell in dull seclusion lone, 


The eye-glass, with its silver chain — 


But in the streets and round the throne, 


Let him propose — I '11 make him hold ! 


As friends of every one, shall stand 


He 's waiting there without a doubt, 


And throw their magic o'er the land. 


And here am I, kept waiting too ! 


And not to please a pedant's taste 


And still it pours a water-spout, 


The artist shall his labour waste, 


And not a cab will come in view ! 


But in the people's gladden'd eyes 




Find his labour's richest prize. 


I tried the cards last night — up came 


There shall music's temple rise 


The king of spades ! I know he 's mine ! 


And fill with harmony the skies, 


And I shall be a wealthy dame — 


And palaces where art divine 


Good heavens ! the clock is striking nme ! 


Makes earth in heavenly colours shine. 


And there is mistress calling out ! 


The poets shall not tell their tales 


(She always does — 'tis just for spite !) 


To moonlit woods like nightingales, 


The rain falls like a water-spout, 


Nor give the cheerful lyric strain 


And not a cab will come in sight ! 


To old-world fables dull and vain, 




Of knights and saints in ancient days, 


— ♦ 


Nor fill with idle dreams their lays ; 




But in the city bards shall dwell, 


CHAPTER XL 


By king and people honour'd well, 
And poetry, no idle art, 


RUCKERT — PLATEN — LENAU — GEIBEL — DEEG. 


Shall cheer the universal heart. 




There one shall show, with tragic hand, 


Ruckert is a poet half German and half oriental. 


The hero's death for Fatherland ; 


In vain have some of his cotemporaries called him 


Another, with a comic grace, 


away from his Persian bowers of roses to the 


Will show the people their own face, 


battle-field of opinions : he refuses to leave the 


And lyric poets with the lay 


company of Anacreon, Hafiz, and the amatory 


Shall gladden every festive d ay. 

H 



98 RUCKERT. 


And I would wander through the street, 


The hermit in the forest 


With songs and sounds of music sweet, 


With book and beads alone ; 


And sing, in many a chiming line, 


The fiddler leading dances 


Of spring, youth, roses, love and wine ; 


With the viol's sprightly tone ; — 


While all the city, gather' d round, 




Should stand enchanted with the sound ; 


Let others have the labour ; 


Thence, like the winds, my songs should go, 


I hold, in studious rest, 


And, gladdening, through the country flow. 


The joys of every station 




Within a poet's breast. 


A very pleasant life it would be for you, Frederick 




Ruckert ! and for such a smooth and happy world 
your songs would be well suited, though even in 
such a Utopia we should be tempted to yawn if 


I would build myself a house 


Amid some pleasant land, 
My walls should all be shining 


you did not diversify your topics more, and sprinkle 


Well painted by my hand. 


your ideas in rather a higher proportion to your 


I would go and gather grapes 


rhymes. 

Here is a miniature quarto by Ruckert, entitled 


All purple, love, with thee, 
And, in the winter, weave 


" Love's Spring-time," adorned with an amatory 
frontispiece, and containing not less than four hun- 


Clothing for thee and me. 


dred pages of love-lyrics, of which the following 


But every earthly station 


are specimens : — 


Would be so sweet with thee, 




Of all that I can dream of 


SONG. 


I know not what to be. 


Love you for beauty ? 
Then love not me : — 


My love said — " You have chosen 


The sun, golden-haired, 


The poet's better part : 


Is fairer to see. 


The joys of every station 




Are in the poet's heart. 


Love you for youth ? 

Then love not me : — 
The spring, every year, 

Comes in youthful glee. 


" Your fancy, in a moment, 
Can place yourself and me 


In any clime or country 
Wherever you would be. 


Love you for riches ? 


" See, now you are a hunter, 


Then love not me : — 


In green and golden dress, 


Love the bright pearls 


And find me 'mid my lambkins, 


In the deep, blue sea. 


A simple shepherdess. 


Love you for love ? 


" And now you plant a garden 


then love me, 


In bloom the whole year round, 


And love me as I will love, 


And not a tiny weed 


Evermore thee ! 


Deforms the poet's ground. 




" To-day we dwell together 


THE POET'S LIFE. 


'Mid Alpine hunters brave ; 


No station in the world 


To-morrow under palm-trees . 


Can the poet's envy raise : — 


Where Ganges rolls his wave. 


The shepherd with his flock 
Has delight in summer-days : 


" You need not for bright diamonds, 
Go down into the mine ; 


And in the leafy woods 


With jewels rare and splendid 


The hunter's joy I share, 


Your songs, my poet, shine. 


And the husbandman's who walks 




Through his yellow corn-fields fair. 


" With the music of your lyre 
You have built within my breast 


The reaper, with his hook, 


A dwelling for yourself — 


Amid the golden wheat ; 


There, poet, ever rest !" 


The priest whose days are closed 




With psalms and vespers sweet ; 


PARADISE. 


The miner down beloAv 


Oh, Paradise must fairer be 


Among the veins of gold, 


Than any spot below ; 


And in the stirring fight, 


My spirit pines for liberty — 


The hero young and bold ; 


Now let me thither go ! 


The sailor in his ship 


In Paradise, for ever clear, 


Upon the ocean blue ; 


The stream of love is flowing ; 


The watchman on the tower 


For every tear that I 've shed here 


With the noble, distant view; 


A pearl therein is glowing. 



PLATEN. 



^ 



In Paradise alone is rest ; — 
Joy-breathing, woe-dispelling, 

A heavenly wind fans every breast 
Within that happy dwelling. 

For every wounding thorn below, 

A rose shall blossom there, 
And sweeter flowers than earth can show 

Shall twine around my hair. 

And every joy that, budding, died, 

Shall open there in bloom, 
And Spring, in all her flowery pride, 

Shall waken from the tomb. 

And all the joys shall meet me there 
For which my heart is pining, 

Like golden fruit in gardens fair, 
And flowers for ever shining. 

My youth that fled so soon away 

And left me sad, decaying, 
Shall there be with me every day, 

With bright wings round me playing. 

All hopes, all wishes, all the love 

I long'd for, tasted never, 
Shall bloom around me there above, 

And be with me for ever ! 



PLATEN. 

Platen is a poet who owes his fame more to the 
beauty of his versification than to the vigour or 
originality of his thoughts. His poems are like 
ancient statues, classical, cold and pale. He could 
gracefully bend his mother-tongue to the metres of 
Horace ; but could not move the feelings of the 
people. Yet Platen, though deficient in original 
invention and popular purpose, wins our favour by 
his taste and elegance ; qualities so rare in these 
days of hasty writing, that we are disposed to dwell 
longer with such a writer than with others who 
make less use of greater genius. It is to readers 
who can be delighted with Gray and Collins that 
we commend the poems of Platen. 

Count Platen was born at Ansbach in 1796. 
Though titled, his family was not wealthy, and, in 
accordance with his father's wishes, the young 
Count entered into the military service, an ungenial 
school for a mind whose greatest delight was found 
in the elegance of classical literature. He was 
soon weary of the army's discipline, and went to 
pursue his favourite studies at the University of 
Wiirzburg. Soon afterwards he removed to Er- 
langen, where he listened to the poetical philosophy 
of Schelling, and became the friend of the poet 
Riickert. The result of this friendship was, that 
Platen began to write verses in the oriental strain 
then fashionable ; but they are of little value. Soon 
afterwards, he made several dramatic attempts, 
deficient in everything like dramatic life and 
vigour. The only point in which Platen is re- 
markable as a poet, is in his fine imitations of the 
spirit and style of the old classic poets, especially 
of Horace. We ought hardly to call it imitation ; 
it was something more : he threw off his German 
nature and modern style, and not only wrote ele- 
gantly in the metres, but in the very spirit of his 



ancient models. As, in literature, he left Germany 
and seemed to live in Rome, he determined to 
realize, bodily as well as intellectually, his classical 
ideas, and accordingly went to Italy. After this 
he had little to say in favour of his Fatherland. 
Italy was the land of fife and poetry : Germany 
was the land of dull, prosaic routine and soul- 
burdening studies. In short, Platen was wholly 
seized with that enthusiastic love of the warm 
blue south, which carries so many northern youths 
from Sweden, Denmark, and Germany, to Rome and 
Naples, and. which Andersen, the Danish novelist, 
has so vividly described in his " Improvisatore." 
It may be observed how much easier it is to yield 
to the fascinations of the south, and celebrate its 
climate and scenery, than to master and convert 
into poetry the less pleasing but more energetic 
fife of the people of the north. In the south, Platen 
wrote one of his most considerable poems, the 
" Abassiden," a long story, full of oriental fantasies 
from the Arabian Nights. We cannot consider such 
themes as of any true interest in our day. 

Platen, as far as possible, threw off his German 
nature, and gave his poetry to southern and class- 
ical themes. On his second visit, he lived three 
years at Naples, and described the lively scenes of 
" soft Parthenope" in verses as richly-coloured 
as Andersen's prose. On the death of his father, 
he returned into Germany, and resided a while at 
Munich, where he wrote an historical drama ; but 
his native country was now no home for him, and 
he speaks of it in a very uncomplimentary style : — 

" True, there are some advantages at home — 
State-honours, dull respectability, 
And a great load of learning ! " 

We cannot think him right in this contempt 
of his Fatherland : if there was a want of poetry 
at home, why not create it there ? Why carry 
poetry to the land of the Improvisatore on the 
principle of " carrying coals to Newcastle ?" 

Platen died, and was buried in Sicily, in 1835. 

One part of a poet's duty Platen fulfilled well : 
he gave to his productions the highest finish and 
polish. In his choice of language he exercised the 
care and patience of a lapidary : hence some of 
his poems may be likened to the pebble — 

" When, cut by art, and polished with nice care, 
Veins it discovers, beautiful and rare ; 
Which for the loss of that moist gleam atone 
That tempted first to gather it." 

LUCA SIGNORELLI. 

'Twas at the hour of evening-prayer — 

The painter from his easel rose, 
And gazed upon the picture there — 

How life-like every aspect glows ! 

Hark ! — what can mean these sudden cries ! — 

A pupil comes, with hasty tread, 
Enters the painter's room and sigbs, 

" Master ! your only son is dead ! 

" Alas ! his beauty brought his doom ; 

He fell beneath a rival's hand, 
And yonder, in the minster's gloom, 

The praying monks around him stand." 
h2 



100 



PLATEN. 



Then Luca cried, — " O misery ! 

Thus I have lived and toiled in vain ! — 
This moment takes away from me 

The fruit of all my labour's pain ! 

" What care I that my paintings' glow 

With joy Cortona's people hail ? 
Or that Orvieto's church can show 

My * Judgment, 1 ' making gazers pale ? 

" Nor fame, nor laurels round my brow, 
Can bind this wound and heal my smart ; 

Thy last, best consolation now 
Bestow on me, beloved Art ! " 

Straight to the church the Master went — 
He shed no tears — he said no more — 

His pupil, guessing his intent, 

Beside him brush and palette bore. 

He steps into the minster — see ! 

From many a shrine bis paintings gleam : 
The monks their funeral litany 

Chant by the lamps' undying beam. 

He gazes on the beauteous dead, 

Then, all night, in that solemn place, 

He sits, with colours near him spread, 
To paint the dear boy's sleeping face. 

He sits and paints beside the bier, 

With father's heart and painter's skill, 

Till morning dawns — " I have him here — 
Bury the corpse whene'er you will." 

Here are a few laconic lines on the entrance of 
Charles V. into the monastery of St. Justus. 

THE PILGRIM OP ST. JUST. 

It is black night — loud is the tempest's roar 

" Good Spanish monk, open the convent-door. 

" And let me rest till, ere the dawning day, 
The convent bell awakens me to pray. 

" Prepare for me the little I require — 
A monk's black gown and funeral attire. 

" Give me one little cell within your shrine — 
Once, more than half this hollow world was mine. 

" The head I offer for the tonsure now 
Once had a jewelled crown upon its brow, 

" And on these shoulders which the cowl must hide, 
Purple and costly ermine showed their pride." 

Now, before death, I would be reckoned dead, 
With my old realm in ruins round me spread. 



Anastasius Grim 
of the royal monk. 



has a fine poem on the burial 



THE BURIAL A.T ST. JUST. 
From the convent of St. Just 

Sounds a slow, funereal lay ; 
In the tower a bell is tolling — 

A monk has passed away. 



See the dead ! — and did he wear 

A crown of thorns ? — his brow behold ! 

A faint red line is shining there — 
The mark is of a crown of gold ! 

A monk draws down the cowl 

Over the sleeper's face, 
That it may hide for ever 

The crown's imperial trace ! 

Once that thin and wither' d arm 

Held a sceptre o'er the land ; 
Firm the sceptre, as a pine 

Upon a rock, within that hand ! 

Now, a brother of St. Just 

Bends the arms across the breast, 
And plants a cross between 

For everlasting rest. 

Bright as rainbow-hues of heaven 
Shone that old monk's natal day; 

Kings around his cradle stood, 

And gay queens sang his cradle-lay. 

Now the quire of monks are chanting, 

Along the chapel dim, 
Over their royal brother 

Their old funereal hymn. 

The sun goes down that never left 

The realm once ruled by that pale hand : — 

The evening-redness 'mid these oaks, 
Is morning in another land. 

Now the bell is tolling softly — 

Fair valleys all, farewell ! 
" Farewell, vain world ! " the monks sing 

To the music of the bell. 

Through the window of the chapel 
Gleams the sun, with fainter red, 

To see, before he goes away, 

The pale, monastic monarch — dead ! 

Maids and shepherds in the valley 

Hear the bell and funeral-lay, 
And stand, with heads uncovered, 

For the good old monk to pray. 

A finer subject for a poem may be found in the 
anticipation of his death and burial, with which 
Charles consummated his ascetic life. Perhaps 
the reader will excuse the insertion of the following 
poem, introduced by a passage from " Robinson's 
History of Charles V." 

" As an expiation for his sins, he gave himself 
the discipline, in secret, with such severity that 
the whip of cords which he employed as the in- 
strument of his punishment, was found, after his 
decease, tinged with his blood. Nor was he 
satisfied with these acts of mortification, which, 
however severe, were not unexampled. He re- 
solved to celebrate his own obsequies before his 
death. He ordered his tomb to be erected in the 
chapel of the monastery. His domestics marched 
thither in funeral procession, with black tapers in 
their hands. He himself followed in his shroud. 
He was laid in his coffin with much solemnity. 
The service for the dead was chaunted, and Charles 



PLATEN. 



101 



joined in the prayers which were offered up for 
the rest of his soul, mingling his tears with those 
which his attendants shed, as if they had been cele- 
brating a real funeral. The ceremony closed with 
sprinkling holy water on the coffin in the usual 
form, and, all the assistants retiring, the doors of 
the chapel were shut. Then Charles rose out of 
his coffin and withdrew to his apartment, full of 
those awful sentiments which such a singular 
solemnity was calculated to inspire. But either 
the fatiguing length of the ceremony, or the im- 
pression which the image of death had left on his 
mind, affected him so much, that, next day, he 
was seized with a fever. His feeble frame could 
not long resist its violence, and he expired on the 
21st of September, after a life of fifty-eight years, 
six months and twenty-five days." 

THE VISION OF CHARLES THE FIFTH. 

A pale, thin face gleams through the twilight-gloom — 
A mighty crown was once upon that head — 

A King is dying in this lowly room — 
The Confessor is standing by the bed. 

" Father ! that vision was too strange for me ; 

Too chilling was that long, funereal strain : 
My soul has been into eternity, 

And cannot come to dwell on earth again. 

" The Tempter vexed me even within my tomb : — 
I know not how the vision entered there ; 

But, while I lay amid the chapel's gloom, 

The world before me spread its dazzling glare. 

" And, while you sang, I saw, in glittering light, 
Crowns, sceptres, thrones, and palaces display'd — 

Armies and fields of battles — banners bright — 
I said ' Avaunt ! ' and yet the vision stayed. 

" Then, through them all, I saw, dress'd in a shroud, 
The Minister of Death come gliding on — 

He waved his hand, and, like a melting cloud, 
Thrones, palaces, and armies — all were gone ! 

" And, in a boundless, misty space, I saw 
A crowd of figures clad in solemn gray—- 

Some trembling, others tranquil in their awe — 
That Minister conducted them away. 

" He led them to the footstool of a throne — 
Dreadful and vast, on many steps it rose, 

Veiled all around with clouds ; but through them shone 
Beams whiter than the light of mountain snows ! 

" Then came that Spectre solemnly to me ; 

And thus he spoke — ' Forget life's dazzling scene, 
' Vanished for ever, like a mockery ; 

' So let it pass, as if it had not been! 

" ' Come ! take your place among your brethren here — 
' Before yon judgment- throne receive your doom ! 

' Worth more than kingdoms now one contrite tear!' — 
He said, and vanished in the misty gloom. 

" Pray for me, Brother! — Oh, long years misspent ! — 
Days of vain-glory, pride, and earthly care ! — 

Of all my life I bitterly repent, 

Save some few hours that I have pass'd in prayer ! " 

J. G. 



Now for a strain of livelier music. — Platen was 
in love with Naples, and in the following verses he 
seems to have been inspired by the true genius loci. 

NAPLES. 

Come, Stranger, look on Naples ! behold it ere you die ; 
For there is nothing fairer beneath the Italian sky. 
Come ! every thought of sorrow from memory chase away, 
And give your soul to pleasure and to Naples for a day ! 

Here, in a semicircle, on the margin of the bay, 

Rise masts and stately dwellings, besprinkled with the 

spray ; 
Behind, the rocky fissures are decked with trailing vines 
And, waving in the summer wind, are cypresses and pines. 

See, on the hill, the houses down-sloping to the shore — 
Above the level roofs rise vineyards, more and more ; 
Below lies, bright as silver, in evening light, the bay — 
Above, behold, Vesuvius hides its cone in smoky gray. 

See five gray castles stationed this pleasant city round — 
That, yonder, is St. Elmo upon its grassy mound ; 
And, yonder, on that island, where the tiny ripples break, 
Is the garden of Lucullus, encircled with a lake. 

Where shall we wander next till your eye has had its fill ? 
—Let us hasten to the shore and watch the fisher's skill : 
He drags his laden nets from the gently-swelling sea, 
With a brawny, naked arm, as he carols in his glee. 

Beside him stands a beggar-monk, who, holding out his 

hand, 
Is begging for " one little fish " that'glitters on the sand, 
The merry wives of fishermen sit spinning by the bay, 
Full of gossip and old stories. — Now look another way ! 

Here a pair begin to dance : — soon a gazing crowd is 

coming — 
Castanets are clinking— one the tambourine is thumbing — 
They dance the Tarantella. — What springing! — At the 

close, 
The stripling at his partner flings, playfully, a rose. 

Away to the Toledo— the noisy, crowded street- 
Look well ! at every footstep a picture you may meet. 
And hark how every hawker is singing out his tale — 
" Fruits ! " — "macaroni ["—everything !— the man him- 
self for sale ! 

Here, in a cabriolet, a fat monk proudly rides — 
His leaner, reverend brother a donkey's back bestrides — 
And no w a beggar stops us, and meekly sues for grace, 
But holds a ragged handkerchief to hide his laughing face ! 

Ha ! what a noisy squeak ! look yonder ! Punchinello 
Is lecturing to an audience (immortal, merry fellow !) 
Here steaming macaroni perfumes the neighbouring air 
Where sailors stand and swallow down, by yards, the 
smoking fare. 

Here sits a money-changer with cash before him laid— 
There a barber hangs his apron and shaves beneath the 

shade — 
Here a letter- writer sits, and, while he mends his pen, 
A swarthy girl indites — " to the cruelest of men ! '* 

Now hasten to the Molo, where the lazzaroni lie, 
With dusky limbs, uncovered, beneath the sunny 6ky : 
See, yonder gleaming, Capri, where vessels come and go, 
And the merry sailors tacking to the breezes as they blow. 

And now a crowd has gathered upon the sandy shore- 
In the centre of a circle stands the Improvisatore — 
He sings " The Sword of Roland," often stopping to 

explain 
Some old romantic story inwoven with his strain. 



102 



PLATEN. 



And now another rosy Italian day is done — 
See on the golden billows the glowing setting sun- 
Come, step into the shallop— let us sail across the bay- 
Balsamic night of Naples ! as lovely as the day ! 

See, Naples' lights are shining in many a sparkling row— 
With torch-light o'er the water the fishing vessels go — 
All night we sail in splendour on the phosphorescent bay — 
A thousand pleasing visions rise to chase dull sleep away. 

And now the day is dawning upon the mountain steep— 
Sorrento's orange-fragrance is breathing o'er the deep — 
See, there its roofs are shining within a rocky belt, 
And yonder is the house where Torquato Tasso dwelt. 

Here is a scene from the Danish Andersen's 
" Life in Italy," as a note on Platen's verses : — 

" Federigo was enraptured with the picturesque 
groups which we met. Women, with red cloaks 
turned over their heads, rode past on asses, a young 
child at the breast, or sleeping with an elder one in 
the basket at their feet. A whole family rode upon 
one horse ; the wife behind the husband, and 
rested her arm or her head against his shoulder and 
seemed to sleep ; the man had before him his little 
boy, who sat and played with the whip. It was such a 
group as Pignelli has given in his beautiful scenes out 
of the life of the people. The air was gray, it rained 
a little ; we could neither see Vesuvius nor Capri. 
The corn stood juicy and green in the field under the 
tall fruit-trees and poplars, round which the vines 
enwreathed themselves. i Do you see,' said the 
Signora, ' our campagna is a table well spread with 
bread, fruit, and wine ; and you will soon see our gay 
city and our swelling sea ! ' Towards evening we 
approached it. The splendid Toledo street lay before 
us ; it was really a corso. On every hand were 
illumined shops ; tables which stood in the street, 
laden with oranges and figs, were lit up by lamps 
and gaily-coloured lanterns. The whole street, with 
its innumerable lights in the open air, looked like a 
stream sprinkled over with stars. On each side stood 
lofty houses, with balconies before every window, 
nay, often quite round the corner,, and within these 
stood ladies and gentlemen, as if it were still a merry 
carnival. One carriage passed another, andthe horses 
slipped on the smooth slabs of lava with which the 
street was paved. Now a little cabriolet on two 
wheels came by ; from five to six people sat in the 
little carriage, ragged lads stood behind it, and 
beneath in the shaking net, lay quite snugly a half- 
naked iazzarone. One single horse drew the whole 
crowd, and yet it went at a gallop. There was a fire 
kindled before a corner-house, before which lay two 
half -naked fellows, clad only in drawers, and with 
the vest fastened with one single button, who played 
at cards. Hand-organs and hurdygurdies were play- 
ing, to which women were singing ; all were scream- 
ing, all running one among another— soldiers, Greeks, 
Turks, English. I felt myself transported into quite 
another world ; a more southern life than that which 
I had known breathed around me. The Signora 
clapped her hands at the sight of her merry Naples. 
' Rome,' she said, i was a grave beside her laughing- 
city.' We turned into the Largo del Castello, one of 
the largest squares in Naples, which leads down to 
the sea, and the same noise and the same crowd met 
us here. Around us we saw illuminated theatres, on 
the outside of which were bright pictures, which 
represented the principal scenes of the pieces which 
were being performed within, Aloft, on a scaffold, 



stormed a Bajazzy family. The wife cried out to the 
spectators ; the husband blew the trumpet, and the 
youngest son beat them both with a great riding- whip, 
whilst a little horse stood upon its hind-legs in the 
back-scene, and read out of an open book. A man 
stood, and fought and sang in the midst of a crowd 
of sailors, who sat in a corner ; he was an improvisa- 
tore. An old fellow read aloud out of a book, 
4 Orlando Furioso,'as I was told ; his audience were 
applauding him just as we passed by. 'Monte 
Vesuvio ! ' cried the Signora ; and I now saw at the 
end of the street, where the light-house stood, 
Vesuvius, lifting itself high ha the air, and the fire- 
red lava, like a stream of blood, rolling down from 
its side." 

There is a pleasant naivete in 



THE FISHER-MAID OF BURANO.* 

Work merrily, my sisters ! let the net be ready : soon 
Will my lover's snowy sail shine o'er the smooth lagoon. 

Why tarries he so long to-day ? the waters are asleep, 

There hardly is a ripple upon the quiet deep, 

And homewards, if it blows at all, the gentle wind is 

blowing, 
And over shining Venice the evening-clouda are glowing. 

'Twas eastward to Altino's coast my lover sail'd to-day, 

Where once a peopled city stood, as aged fishers say ; 

Of sparkling gems and golden coins discovered there they 

tell— 
May my lover find some precious thing; for he deserves it 

well! 

'Tis sweet to fish at eventide, beneath the silver moon, 
When, like a gold-and-silver lake, glitters the wide lagoon; 
The shining sea-grass on the net is beauteous to behold, 
For every mesh is gilded and the fish are all of gold ! 

But fairer is the Saint's day, when my lover stays at home, 
When all the brave young fishermen among the maidens 

roam, 
When every one is walking out in festival array, 
And my lover is among them, the gayest of the gay ! 

Then we listen to the stories of the Improvisatore, 
Who tells us of the saintly men and maids in days of yore ; 
He tells us of Albanus, a man of wondrous grace- 
In the church his portrait hangs, for he was patron of the 
place. 

Have you heard how sailors hither brought his saintly 

bones to land ? 
Too heavy was the coffin to he lifted on the strand ; 
They push'd and haul'd, and cried " yo-ho," with many a 

heaving strain, 
But still the burden would not move— their toil was all in 



Then a band of merry children came running o'er the sand, 
And seized the rope and lightly drew the coffin on the land, 
And laughing all the while in sport, the load they drew 

along ; 
Because they were so innocent it was that they were strong! 

Then of the Brides ok Venice he sings the story o'er 

Who came in bridal dresses, to Olivolo's shore ; 

But hidden in the rushes a band of pirates lay, 

Who seized the trembling maidens and hurried them away. 

But Venice soon was sounding with loud and angry cries, 
" To arms ! pursue the pirates ; regain the lovely prize !" 

* Burano is a fishing-island near Venice. 



PLATEN. 



103 



The Doge himself commands the ship that ripples through 

the foam, 
And brings the fair Venetian Brides in splendid triumph 

home. 

So sang the Improvisatore : — my lover heard the strain, 
And looked as if he longed to do such noble deeds again : 
Ah, if a pirate-company should sail away with me, 
How bravely would my fisher-boy pursue them o'er the sea! 

And sometimes to Torcello my lover rows me o'er — 
'Twas full of busy people, they say, in days of yore : 
Now 'tis a lonely, silent place, — with waters dull and slow, 
The salt canals along the marshy meadows hardly flow. 

There is the seat of Attila ; there stands all drear and lone, 
The ruin of the council-house, where once stood, carved in 

stone, 
The lion with his wings outspread so proudly in the day 
Of good St. Mark, who ruled the land, as ancient stories 

say. 

All this my lover tells me, as his father told to him, — 
Then, as he rows me homeward, he chants a vesper hymn, 
Or sings me " In the Gondola," or "Sweet and Lovely Rose," 
And so our pleasant holiday in music finds a close. 

Work merrily, my sisters ! let the net be ready : soon 
Will my lover's snowy sail shine o'er the smooth lagoon. 



HARMOSAN. 

The throne of the Sassanides was shatter'd on the ground, 
The Moslem hand thy hoard of wealth, O Ctesiphon, had 

found, 
When Omar to the Oxus came, through many a bloody day, 
And Jesdegerd, the Persian King, among the corpses lay. 

And as the Arabian Caliph to count the spoil began, 
Before him came a Satrap, bound— his name was Har- 

wosan — 
The last was he to quit the field, where many fell in vain, 
Or yield his sword ; but now his hands were fastened with 

a chain. 

Then Omar darkly frown'd on him, and thus the victor 

said :— 
" Know you how crimson is the hand that faithful blood 

hath shed ? " 
"My doom awaits your pleasure now — the power is on 

your side — 
A victor's word is always right ! "—so Harmosan replied. 

" I have but one request to make, whatever fate be mine — 
For these three days I have not drunk— bring me a cup 

of wine!" 
Then Omar nodded, and his slaves brought presently the 

cup, 
But, fearing fraud, suspiciously the captive held it up. 

" Why drink you not ? the Mussulman will ne'er deceive a 

guest : 
" You shall not die till you have drunk that wine— 'Tis of 

the best — " 
The Persian seized the cup at once, and cast a' smile 

around, 
Then dash'd the goblet down— the wine ran streaming o'er 

the ground. 

As Omar's chieftains saw the trick, they drew with savage 

frown, 
Out from their Bheaths the scimitars to cut the Persian 

down; 
But Omar cried—" So let him live ! Faithful, put up the 

sword ! 
If aught on earth is holy still, it is a hero's word ! " 



PHILEMON'S DEATH. 

'Twas when Antigonus besieged fair Athens ; 
There sat Philemon, ninety-nine years old, 
Last of the Athenian poets — he had heard 
Thy bold Philippics, O Demosthenes ! 
And many wreaths of laurel had he won 
By comedies, with wit and wisdom filled. 
Then through the chamber where the poet sat 
Nine graceful maidens hastened to the door : 
"Why leave you me, fair maidens like the muses?" 
Said the old man, and thus a muse replied ; 
" We will not see the downfall of fair Athens." 
Then called Philemon for his writing-tablets, 
And wrote the last verse of a comedy, 
Then laid the stylus down, and, leaning back 
Upon his couch, sank into endless sleep. 
Athens was soon the Macedonian's prey. 



Platen's Odes and Hymns are the most elegant 
of his poems. They are marked by a laconic 
beauty of expression, and the omission of rhyme 
seems to be a nice propriety in poems chiefly of a 
meditative character ; for rhyme is the expression 
of an excitement which does not belong to such 
productions as the following. 

AN INVITATION TO SORRENTO. 

Come, leave behind, my friend, the dust of Naples ; 
Leave, with its chorus of a thousand voices, 
Its market-cries, and lofty-towering houses, 
Crowded Toledo. 

Where, — 'mid unnumbered wheels for ever rolling, — 
Upon their empty baskets (in the morning 
Brought full to market) lie the rustic striplings, 
Fearlessly sleeping. 

Hither ! and let this purer air blow round thee ; 
Here see the vine commingling shades of green, 
Knitting one dusky olive to another 
With its bright tendrils. 

While with rich clusters all its boughs are drooping, 
Here the fig ripens, 'neath its broad leaves shaded ; 
Here down the steep sides of the rocky chasm 
Shine golden citrons. 

Here are cool shadows, here refreshing breezes 
Waft the salt spray upon the muser's forehead, 
As, resting on a point of rock, he watches 
The breaking billows. 

And here are baths, with soft and sandy footing, 
Where dark cool ivy round the walls is clinging ; 
And here are grottos cooler than thy hollow, 
San Giovanni ! 

Thither the boatman rowed our little shallop 
Over the billows rosy-blue and purple, 
There, from the cave, my friend, we swam together 
In the still water. 

Come, gaze with me upon this gulf's broad mirror, 
Smooth, glassy, with white sails all over sprinkled : 
See, o'er the water soars the smoke of Naples 
And of Vesuvius ! 



104 



PLATEN. 



And see the islands on the water shining — 
Ischia towerlike; Procida far-extending ; — 
Yon is Cape Misen ; in the evening-redness 
Glitters its forehead ; 

Where, in light skiff, my friend, we sail'd together 
Hailing once desolate, yet ever-blooming 
Gaily in spring-time, playing with the billows, 
Beautiful Baia ! 

Bear witness of our friendship, pleasant islands, 
Where we have stray' d together ! Witness also, 
Ye venerable ruins of old temples, 
Built by the Romans ! 

Trophies of power and majesty and beauty, 
Time has laid low amid Rome's dust and ashes : 
See in the grass, o'ergrown with weeds are lying 
Pillars of marble ! 

Love still endures : — still flourishes our friendship ! 
Long have I carried, friend, within my bosom 
Thy image — in thy heart my own beholding 
As in a mirror ! 



FLORENCE. 

Fairly the old Etrurians named thee, Florence, 
" The Blooming City;" not because thy Arno 

Laves hills, of which the poorest 

With wine and oil is flowing ; 

And not because rich fields of grain surround thee, 
And, in thy parks, tall cypresses and olives, 

With scarlet oaks and laurels, 

Together bloom unfading ; 

Nor for thy galleries, filled with painting's treasures, 
Where stands the travelling Briton, dumbly-gazing — 

(What gems of thine, O Florence ! 

Enrich the stranger's dwelling !) 

The sun of Medicis no more is shining ; 

Long in their tombs thy great ones have been sleeping, 
Da Vinci, Buonarotti, 
Deep Machiavel, stern Dante : — 

Yet in thy children still thy fame is blooming ; 

The fairest models of thy ancient masters 
Still wander by Lungarno, 
And cheer thy pleasant dwellings. 

The stranger's eye, hewilder'd among beauties, 
Has scarcely mark'd one figure for a model 

Of grace, when, lo, another 

Trips by, and still a fairer ! 

Have not these maids of Florence, from their childhood, 
Looked on thy glowing Venus, splendid Titian ? 

Have they not stolen, Venus, 

Thy beauty by long gazing ? 

Have not the mothers of thy children, Florence, 
Thrown often, as they pass'd, a glance of pleasure 

On Benvenuto's Perseus, 

And yon divine Apollo? 

" City of beauties ! evermore be blooming," 
The poet says, though with an earnest purpose, 

He throws, like toys of childhood 

Aside all thoughts of pleasure : 



For truth and duty call him, and stern manhood 
Dawns now upon him, with a serious genius, 
Devoted to the future, 
Disdaining transient honours. 

Beautiful Florence ! evermore be blooming ! 
Rise in thy loveliness, as from the water 

Arises yon bright sea-god 

Of famed Gian Bologna ! 



THE PYRAMID OF CESTIUS. * 

Old, glimmering stone ! thou lookest solemnly 
O'er ruins, grassy graves and piles of ashes, 
And Tiber washing from the side of Rome 
The dust of ages : — 

Rome's ancient pride first rear'd thee, when Augustus 
Stood, like a god, before the trembling world, 
Trembling with fear ; for it had lately seen 
The corpse of Caesar ! 

When old Rome bowed down, like a ruin gray, 
Here a new power arose to rule the world, 
Here, where the Prince- Apostle built his throne 
Upon God's altar ! 

Dread was that power ; yet Germany's rude race 
That stay'd thy conquests once, imperial Rome ! 
Dared, with strong hand, to shake the holy throne 
Within the temple ; 

And called for vengeance on that day of pride 
When a priest's golden stirrup, as he mounted, 
Was held, for penance, by the princely hand 
Of Hohenstaufen ! 

Still Rome, twice conquered, bids the world defiance, 
Unconquerable, accustomed to her throne ; 
Her triple crown has felt the angry blast, 
Yet will not tremble ! 

Still woe to him who rests not, like a babe, 
Within Rome's bosom ! woe ! for, every day, 
Here priestly mouths still thunder o'er his head 
Dire condemnation ! 

Only, in pity for heretical clay, 
They give this burial-ground to bones accurs'd : 
Thy shadow falls, O pyramid of Cestius ! 
On northern tombstones ! 

Here, 'mid the strangers, I would lay my bones, 
Far from my own cold country in the north, 
Far from the land where on the poet's lips 
His song is frozen ! 

Gladly I '11 forfeit, 'mid these heathen tombs, 
That heaven of which Rome holds in charge the portal, 
That Paradise which Peter's golden key - 
Can shut or open ! 

Rather conduct my shade into the realm 
Where dwell the mighty poets of the past, 
Where Homer sings and tragic Sophocles, 
Rests, crowned with laurels ! 

* Near this monument is the burial-place for strangers 
and heretics who die at Rome. 



PLATEN. 



105 



But flee, sepulchral thoughts ! for flowers of life 
Among the Roman people still are blooming, 
Whose love is like their summer sky, whose friendship 
Like love is glowing ! 

There is in these stanzas something which re- 
calls to mind the concise elegance of Horace, 
blending striking external scenery and allusions 
to history with the poet's sentiments. The last 
stanza, too, reminds us of the Roman poet turn- 
ing from sad reflections to Epicurean philosophy ; 
but we can hardly acquiesce in the praise of modern 
Romans : we rather think that an elegy on Rome, 
to be in accordance with its topic, should both begin 
and conclude in a strain of melancholy ; for Rome 
is a sad place to every one who thinks and feels. 

MISANTHROPY. 

Unhappy he whose bosom feels thy smart, 
Bitter as death itself, Misanthropy ! 

Youth has no charms for him — 

No songs can give delight. 

He stands alone, in conflict with his age, — 
The joys of thousands are no joys for him : 

He casts around on men 

Gloomy, contemptuous looks. 

And woe to him if nature made his soul 
Too fine for life in this rude world, and gave 

Melodious, flowing words 

Only to tell his pain. 

For senseless chatter plagues him on his way — 
He hears the scandal of the vulgar mob ; 

He hears and, though he scorns, 

He feels it in his soul. 

Bitter to cherish truths and yet conceal, 
While folly fastens reason with a chain, 

And sycophants bow down 

To kiss the tyrant's rod ! 

Then he grows weary of life's idle game ; 
The breath of liberty around him blows, 

As, like a cumbrous robe, 

He lays the body down. 

" Are there two souls," he asks, "in all the world 
That know and love each other? " None replies : 

He asks but for a friend — 

He seeks and, seeking, dies ! 

THE BETTER PART. 

Still fresh in youth and innocence is nature, 
While man grows old in misery and error — 
In mercy, as in justice, heaven commandeth — 
Die to be happy ! 

From day to day hope followeth a phantom — 
Through every zone, wherever man may wander, 
He takes with him his woes, changing one sorrow 
But for another ! 

His restless soul for knowledge strives — for free- 
dom — 
Around him lies the world — an icy barrier — 
No power — not virtue 's self — can bid defiance 
Long to death's arrow ! 



Science is daring ; yet of all the volume 
Full of deep mysteries is one page unravelled ? 
Yon heaven's bright galaxies and constellations 
Who shall interpret ? 

" Faith is man's wisdom," said the godlike Teacher, 
" Better than science, a firm trust, reposing 
Upon the power and love of the Almighty 
All things controlling." 

Knowledge and labour may achieve their wonders ; 
And yet those souls, in lowliness, are happier 
Who for their lot have chosen faith — " the better 
Part,"— like Maria ! 



BRUNELLESCHI.* 

Yes ; venerable are your gothic piles ; 
With wonder have I seen Orvieto's dome, 

Milan's cathedral spires, 

And Pavia's lofty shrine : 

Yet I love beauty in a purer form, 

Beauty that wins me more from day to day ; 

Your gothic piles amaze 

At first, and then fatigue. 

But classic beauty wakens, ever new, 

Sweet, placid thoughts. Thehighest praise be given 

To Brunelleschi. He 

Restored the beautiful ! 

He wandered 'mid the ashes of old Rome, 
Thoughtful, dug up from the neglected dust 

Columns, and, in his mind, 

Arranged them as of old. 

He, with his friend Donato, laboured on, 
(While Rome's vain people deem'd he sought 
for gold) 

Raised beauty from the dust, 

And wakened stones to life ! 

And Florence thanks him, in his riches clad, 
Though he was poor : with Florence, in her pride, 

Venice alone contends 

For beauty's highest meed. 

TO MARCO SARACINI. 



True sympathy might bind our hearts together 
And knit our hands through life ; but see, our 
By destiny, that rules both rich and poor, 
Are widely severed ! 

To thee she gives, in her good pleasure, riches — 
Hundreds of sowers scatter grain for thee ; 
The pressers tread thy grapes, and crush out oil 
From the rich olive. 

And thine are pleasant villas in the land, 
Castles for hunting in brown Autumn's days, 
Where the steep Appenines slope down amain 
Toward the ocean. 

Lofty and beautiful thy palace shines — 
Cool are its marble halls in summer days — 
'Tis sweet to wander there, and gaze around 
On ancient statues ! 



* A sculptor, and the most celebrated architect of his 
age— the cotemporary of Donatello. 



106 



LENAU. 



Thy friend possesses nothing, noble youth ; 
And longs for nothing more than he carry 
Lightly along ; to him thy wealth would be 
A heavy burden. 

I say farewell, and take my pilgrim-stafF, 
Which never can take root — it will not rest 
'Till, in some foreign land, a stranger lays it 
Over my ashes ! 

.There is something of antique grace and dignity 
in the above lines addressed by the poet to a noble 
and wealthy friend. The following stanzas are 
equally chaste and elegant. 

TO THE COUNTESS PIERI IN SIENNA. 

Beauty and gracefulness are given to few ; 

On few doth fortune shed her golden shower ; — 

On fewer heaven bestows 

A sympathetic soul : 

But beauty, wealth, and a most friendly heart 
Are all united, noble dame, in thee, 

With earnest, active thought, 

Averse from idle show. 

Music and poetry, and friendship pure, 
Cheer all thy days, and elevate tby life 

Above the sensuous sleep 

Of dreamy Italy. 

Thy hospitable dwelling, noble lady, 
Gave shelter to a poet through the winter : 

Thankful, he says, ' farewell !' — 

Spring calls him forth again. 

'Tis sweet to stay with friends beneath thy roof; 
And yet 'tis sweet to hear the flapping sails 

And from the deck behold 

The cities on the shore. 



VESUVIUS.* 

Beauteous and splendid is the ocean-tide, 
When billows break in lustre on the shore ; 
But not one element can equal fire 
In its dread power, 

Nor in its beauty. Would you see them both ? 
Climb up Vesuvius, when the solemn night 
Spreads over Naples and its bay : then gaze 
Down the deep crater. 

Whence, while dread thunders mutter 'neath your 

feet, 
Stones, fiercely blazing, countless as the stars, 
Shoot up in the blue sky, all winged with flames, 

Golden and rosy. 

Then see them fall, still glowing, all around, 
Like scattered rubies upon piles of ashes, 
Or rolling from the crater's fiery mouth 
Down the steep mountain ; 

While, like a robe of crimson, the red lava 
Flows down the mountain-side, and smoke, and steam, 
Rising in columns, hide, O peaceful moon ! 
Thy disk of silver ! 



* In December, 1830. 



LENAU. 

Lenau is the self-chosen name of a poet (de- 
scended from an aristocratic Hungarian family) 
whose productions have generally a tone of me- 
lancholy. 

THE DEATH OF SPRING. 

Dull, sighing winds, what burden do ye bring ? 

What mean these sounds of sorrow in the wood ? 

Why are the waves dark on the river-flood ? — 
It is the dying day of our dear Spring ! 

The sky is all one thunder-bearing cloud — 
Fit aspect for young Spring's funereal day — 

Beside his dying pillow, sad and loud 
Pours Philomel a melancholy lay. 

Ah, Spring, thy smiling face and azure sky 
Brought long-lost paradise again to view : 

For having stirr'd our hearts so, thou must die — 
Pierced by the summer's sultry sunbeam through. 

Now lightnings flash and clouds of thunder roll, 
And the loud tempest howls along the wood ; 

But, smiling still, dear Spring breathes out his soul 
And dyes a thousand roses in his blood. 

Though we can hardly rise to the cheerful faith 
of Coleridge, that 

" In nature there is nothing melancholy," 

we can see the mistake in the foregoing elegiac 
verses. Spring does not die at the coming of sum- 
mer, but rather is translated into a higher glory. 

There is a mistake, also, in the following autum- 
nal stanzas, though they seem more accordant with 
nature : — 

AUTUMN. 

The beech-tree wood is tinged with autumn-red — 
Splendour soon fading in the coming gloom, 

Like the last flushes on a dying bed, 

Roses short-lived, soon dropping in the tomb ! 

And softly, scarce-heard, with a- low-breath'd sighing, 
Flows through the fading vale the wasted stream, 

As friends move in the chamber of the dying, 

Lest they should break the soul's departing dream ! 

Sad wanderer ! here are friends in every wood 
In every reddening tree and falling leaf; 

Here all your sorrows may be understood 
And melt away in fading nature's grief. 

A fine expression of autumnal melancholy ! but 
we cannot let its doctrine pass without a word of 
criticism. 

Is not autumn the perfection and the glory of 
the year ? Has it not in itself the hopes of spring, 
the splendour of summer, and the solemnity of 
winter — the hopes of spring realised, the splendour 
of summer consummated, the solemn repose of 
winter anticipated ? — Do not the other seasons 
exist for autumn, as so many stages in the process 
of which this season is the rich result ? It is a 
holy season in which nature consummates her great 
sacrifice, not only displaying her riches but yield- 



1 

GEIBEL. 107 


ing them up into the hands of man, and smiling as 


Then o'er the midnight landscape drear 


if entranced in the happiness of a benevolent deed. 


We hasten'd through the still ; 


It is not a mere season of decay, as our poet calls 


But long was sounding on my ear 


it : its tinted woods and golden meads are not the 


That echo from the hill. 


symptoms of decline, but of a rise into a higher 




life. It is the sabbath of the year. 




The following poem, for its simplicity and every- 


THE POST-HORN. 


day pathos, might have been inserted among 


Now all the village lies at rest, 
Sleep over all is spread, 


Wordsworth's " Lyrical Ballads." 




And every bird within its nest, 


THE POSTILLION. 


In slumber hides its head. 


It was a lovely night in May, 




And clouds of silver hue 


And yonder lonely queen of night 


Were lightly drawn, in bright array, 


Comes gliding up the sky, 


Across the heavenly blue. 


While field and wood in pallid light, 




As if enchanted, lie. 


The meadows green and woodlands lay 




Their quiet slumbers taking, 


The restless streamlet with a smile 


Along the solitary way 


Salutes the silent moon, 


Only the moon was waking. 


And hums, the midnight to beguile, 




A melancholy tune. 


With mellow horn my driver broke 




The midnight's dreamy still, 


Again, upon my wakeful eye, 


Or, with his whip, sharp echoes woke 


Thy beams, fair moon, are falling, 


From valley, wood, and hill. 


While in the stream that murmurs by 




I hear loved voices calling. 


Beside us, like a transient gleam, 




The landscape seemed to fly ; 


No pleasant dream has round me thrown 


Like fading visions in a dream 


Its fanciful array : 


Still hamlets glided by. 


I with my bosom-grief alone 




Have many words to say. 


Amid the blooming fields enshrined 




A little churchyard lay, 


Hark how the post-horn's sudden bray 


And called the fleeting traveller's mind 


Sounds through the empty street — 


From earthly thoughts away. 


Ah, friends so true, so far away, 




We never more may meet ! 


Beside a hill in moonlight fair 




The old, pale walls were leaning, 


On, on the noisy carriage rolls 


And one tall cross was standing there 


O'er echoing bridge and stone — 


With silent, solemn meaning. 


Ah, left behind, some friendly souls, 




Perhaps, are feeling lone. 


Here my postillion checked his pace 




And held his horses still, 


Their vainly-waving hands, their tears 


Then looked upon the sign of grace 


Call not the wanderer back : 


Below the moonlit hill. 


How cruelly salutes their ears 




The whip's insulting crack ! 


" Sir, here I must a custom keep 




In honour of the bones 


List ! o'er the distant moonlit hill 


Of a good comrade fast asleep 


The sounds have died away ; 


Among those old grey stones : 


The streamlet only breaks the still 


1 


With drowsy roundelay ; 


" A true companion ! for his sake 




I stay beside the hill ; 


While friendly faces gather round, 


He loved its echoes once to wake, 


Though left behind, at home, 


With horn-blast loud and shrill ; 


And through the night their voices sound — 




" Why, wanderer, would you roam?" 


" A mellow horn was his deb'ght, 




His notes were clear and strong ; 




I stay to give him, every night, 


EMANUEL GEIBEL. 


His favourite old song." 






Emanuel Geibel is a poet of no great power ; 


Then, to the churchyard turn'd, he blew 


but he is a genuine poet in his degree, and thus 


The notes of some old lay, 


widely distinguished from the crowd of poor ver- 


In honour of his comrade true 


sifiers who annoy, not the public, but the reviewers, 


There resting in the clay. 


with badly -rhymed essays on " Conscience," "Pro- 




vidence," and all other subjects for sermons. In 


The hill-side echoed back the air 


these days of over-abundant rhyming, the lowest 


In softened tones again, 


demand that can be made on those who present 


As if the dead postillion there 


verses to the public, is, that, if their thoughts 


Was joining in the strain. 


are not highly original, they shall, at least, be 



108 



GEIBEL. 



sweetly and elegantly expressed. Now Emanuel 
Geibel comes up to this standard. His sentiments 
are poetically uttered in musical verses, though 
his thoughts and sympathies are not far-reaching. 

Flowers do not grow to the size of elm- trees, and 
poems should be the very flowers of literature, 
most prized when they exhibit the spirit of beauty 
clothed in the lightest array of words. They should 
spring up and show their beauty, then close, leaving 
a sweet memory behind, like the violets of spring. 

Here are a few verses worth quite as much, we 
think, as several laboured volumes on Natural 
Theology : — 

SPRING'S REVELATION. 

Come to the forest, sceptics — leave your poring — 
List to its thousand voices, all combining — 
See its live columns, twined with roses, soaring, 
See its bright roof, green boughs with boughs entwining. 

Like incense, perfumes from all flowers abounding — 
Like golden tapers see the sunbeams quiver— 
And "jubilate" to the heavens are sounding 
Voices from birds, green boughs and flowing river. 

And heaven — itself, in love, is lowly bowing 
To fold the earth, its bride, in dalliance new, 
All creatures thrill, with love's fire inly glowing — 
Your hearts, however cold, must tremble too ! 

Now say you " Nay, 'tis all a hollow show — 
A mere machine and nothing more we trace ;" 
Now say "'Tis nought" to all Love's overflow, 
And from your lips dash off the cup of grace ! 

In vain — you cannot — if you did the wrong, 
Creation's voice would hush your wretched " nay" 
Unheard amid the thousand-voiced song 
Of all glad creatures loudly uttering "yea/" 



SONG. 

My heart is like the gloomy night, 
When all the forest-houghs are waving — 

Up soars the moon, with golden light, 

Makes all things bright, 
And, see, the woods have hush'd their raving. 

Thou art the moon, with full, clear glow — 

From thy love's deep 
One look of heaven's sweet rest bestow 

To sooth my woe, 
And all my pains are lulled to sleep. 



THE HAUNTED CASTLE. 

r. 
My comrades all were to the forest gone, 

With knife and musket arm'd, to slay the deer 
I sat in the old Earl's castle all alone, 

Waiting their coming in the twilight drear. 
The pale eve-glimmer threw uncertain light 

Upon the antique furniture and wall — 
Death-stillness all around, and coming night — 

I only heard, in the court, the dry leaves fall. 

The oval mirror set in tarnish'd gold, 

The carved leaf-tracery, once a wondrous show, 



The silken-tapestries, thread-bare, faded, old, 
Recall'd to mind a hundred years ago. 

The dim, brown clock chimed out an antique air, 
Some old love-melody, long pass'd away — 

I pictured those who once, in joy or care, 
Sat listening to the changes of the lay. 

My fancy fill'd the hall with shadows hoar, 

And called down all the pictures from their frames, 
And, through the twilight, on the dusky floor, 

Together paced stout knights and stately dames, 
Hoop-petticoats and flounces of brocade 

Were rustling there as in the days of old — 
One turned — and, suddenly, a hand was laid 

Upon my shoulder — Oh, so icy cold ! 

I turned — dear Heaven ! it was no fancy vain — 

There stood a lady, cold and stiff as stone — 
Dress* d in black, faded robe, with sweeping train, 

From which her hand, as white as ivory, shone. 
And as her ghastly face she turn'd on me, 

Her eyes threw out a half-extinguished gleam ; 
Struck to a statue for eternity, 

I felt more horrors than can haunt a dream. 

Beckoning, she moved — I heard no footsteps fall — 

Her train, with noiseless motion, swept the floor — 
She breath' d no word, but, without sign or call, 

Noiseless before her opened every door. 
I followed, dumb, — she glided, like a cloud, 

Through splendid chambers up the old oaken stair ; 
Through galleries and wide halls, once gay and proud, 

She pass'd and look'd around with beckoning air. 

To the balc6nied tower she led the way, 

To a damp, low-arched room, a place of dread, 
Where lo ! a golden bodkin, glimmering lay, 

And high, with many a fold, a tester'd bed. 
There stood the lady still, and, with white hand, 

First to the table, then to the dusted floor 
Pointed. — O Heaven ! my reeling sense command : 

I look'd — she pointed to a spot of gore ! 

With shuddering I look'd up — the form was gone — 

Like mist dissolved in the surrounding gloom. 
I stood, transfix'd and motionless as stone 

Nail'd to the earth, like one at stroke of doom, 
I had no breath — my blood was icy cold — 

Then, God be praised ! — I heard the horn's loud din — 
Deep barkings and hoofs trampling, — music bold — 

I rush'd down stairs, and let the hunters in. 



The night was wild. Close to the wood-fire gleaming, 

Sat I and the Castellan till morning came ; 
We heard the daws about the turrets screaming, 

And the storms' howlings — as we rous'd the flame, 
I felt the impulse to confess, and free 

My bosom from the dread that made me pale ; 
He only said, "You've been disturb'd, I see" — 

And, breathing deep, I listen'd to his tale. 

" A haughty lady that ! rich, fair and cold — 

From childhood linked to an unloved mate : 
For honour, like a warrior, stern and bold, 

Jealous of reputation, strict in state. 
Her eye gave orders to a servile train — 

And woe to all when once her anger glow'd : 
She never sang nor smil'd, but held the rein, 

And, deck'd in velvet, to the forest rode. 



GEIBEL. 109 


" Her only daughter was of milder mood, 


I am the Gem, in gloomy place 


A gentle creature, for misfortune born ; 


No splendours round me flinging ; — 


And, strictly watch'd, she grew up fair and good, 


Thou art the Sunshine on my face 


Like the wild rose beneath the rugged thorn. 


Bright hues from darkness bringing. 


Her hair was flowing gold in the summer breeze, 




Her eyes were like the corn-flowers, blue and clear; 


I am the Cup of Crystal too, 


My grandsire knew her when a child on knees, 


From which a king is drinking ; — 


And, when he named her, oft would drop a tear. 


Thou art the Wine of purple hue 




Bright through the goblet blinking. 


" A young knight to the castle found his way, 




And soon a change came o'er the maiden's feeling ; 


I am the Cloud of dusky gray, 


She loved to list to all his lips would say 


Along the sky extending ; — 


And read his eyes unutter'd love revealing. 


Thou art the Rainbow on me, gay 


She loved, and hid her love, but as the moon 


With various colours blending. 


Went round, and, spring-time, violets- waking came — 




Her secret love unfolded. — Ah, too soon — 


I am the Memnon, dumb and dead 


She loved and fell — for love is more than fame. 


When night is all surrounding ; — 




Thou openest, like the Morning red, 


" Dumb was the Countess in her ire, but stern, 


My lips with music sounding. 


The knight pray'd hard, the daughter wrung her hands ; 




In vain — he rush d to battle, there to earn 


I am the Man in sorrows tried, 


Quick death — died, none knows where, in foreign 


A pilgrim care-attended ; 


lands. 


Thou art my Helper and my Guide, 


And when, in the harvest-time, the grapes were glowing, 


God's Angel strong and splendid ! 


That tower inclosed the maiden faint and pale, 




There pass'd her life in silent mystery flowing, 


SONG. 


Like a dark rivulet in a sunless dale. 




When two hearts sever 


" And winter came, and, one gray twilight eve, 


That once have loved, 


A secret sound arose in the chamber chill, 


Oh, 'tis a sorrow, never 


A stifled sob, and then a groan would heave, 


A greater can be proved ! 


And then a cry, as of a suckling shrill — 


Ne'er words so sad were heard before, 


Then all was hush d, and out the Countess sped, 


" Farewell, farewell for evermore !" 


Corpse-pale" — ' and what had happen'd?' — " ask no 


When two hearts sever 


You saw the golden bodkin near the bed, [more ! 


That once have loved ! 


And the red spot upon the oaken floor. 






When first I learned that love 


" The daughter wither'd, died. In sable dight 


Could ever cease to be, 


They bore her to the old funereal ground ; 


The light of the sun above 


The silver lamps were flaming through the night, 


Was lost that day to me. 


The bells toll'd low — the mourners stood around. 


I ne'er heard words so strange before — 


Then stepp'd the Countess forth, in pride all steel'd, 


" Farewell, farewell for evermore !" 


With hollow, gleaming eyes and wavering tread, 


When first I learn' d that love 


And laid on the coffin, on the family shield, 


Could ever cease to be ! 


The maiden myrtle of her daughter dead ! 






The bloom of spring was missing, 


" One year more pass'd — a new procession came 


The summer would not come ; 


Down to the vault, with torch-light gloomy-red, 


For the lips, once fondly kissing, 


They bore to the grave the stern and haughty dame, 


Were now so cold and dumb ! 


But rest she finds none even among the dead : 


She said one word, and all was o'er — 


For when, with pallid twilight's glimmering sheen, 


" Farewell, farewell for evermore ! " 


In the late Autumn, comes the vesper-time, 


And the bloom of spring was missing, 


That blood-speck calls her from her coffin-screen, 


The summer would not come ! 


To pace, once more, the chamber of her crime!" 




The old man hush'd. — I hardly dared to raise 


« ONWARD." 


Up from the fire my fix'd and stony stare — 


Leave your dreaming, leave your sighing, 


Lest I should meet again that horrid gaze, 


Hoping, striving, travel on, 


See the black lady grimly standing there ! 


Though your strength seem faint and dying, 


Then suddenly howled the tempest in its might, 


Onward till your work is done. 


And, bellowing through the chimney, swept away: 




I seized my candle, — "Castellan, good night! 


Never tarry, when its roses 


Let us for the sad souls departed pray!" 


Time may scatter in your way, 




When, while all the deep reposes, 


A SONG OF SIMILES. 


Sirens sing their charming lay. 


I am the Rose, so softly through 


Onward still, with singing, going, 


The floating vapours gleaming ; — 


Wrestle with your sorrows all, 


But thou, Love, art like the dew 


Till upon your face, still glowing, 


Upon my blossoms streaming. 


Golden beams from heaven fall. 



110 



GEIBEL. 



Till the leafy crown, victorious, 
Casts its shadow o'er your brow, 

Till the light of genius glorious 
O'er you sheds its sacred glow. 

Onward through the enemy, 
Onward through death's agony ; 
He who heaven would ever see 
Must a faithful warrior be. 



MOONLIGHT FANCIES. 

Out from broken cloudy masses 
Soars the golden moon in blue, 

Gilding mountain-peaks and passes, 
Crags and ruin'd castles too. 

Standing on the mossy tower, 

And gazing upwards to her dwelling, 

I listen, through the silent hour, 
To all the moon is softly telling. 

Of ten thousand lovely faces, — 
'Tis a wondrous, charming tale, 

Of all she sees in moonlit places, 
Of rosy kisses in the vale. 

Now some pleasing tale is coming 
Of yon fair maiden, far away — 

Ah ! the clouds again are glooming, 
On the wind departs the lay. 



ON THE WATER, 

Now hill and valley all their blossoms show, 
And Spring's breath rustles through the forest leaves ; 
The Waldhorn's tones melt in the evening glow — 
I would be glad — but my heart inly grieves. 

See, friends are rowing gaily o'er the lake ; 
Guitars are tinkling; in the starry light 
The boat leaves lines of splendour in her wake — 
I would be gay — my heart is dark as night. 

Up soars the moon, the sky is clearer growing ; 
And every happy soul pours forth a lay ; 
Now wine in goblets darkly-red is glowing — 
I would be glad — but still my heart says " nay." 

Ah, if my love could rise up from her grave, 
"With all the raptures once around me shed, 
And give me all again that once she gave — 
In vain ! — the past is passed — the dead is dead ! 



OH, CAST NO MORE THOSE SMILES ON ME 

Oh, cast no more those smiles on me, 

Thou slim gazelle, thou budding rose ! 
Thy glance, though full of youthful glee, 
Awakes remembrance of my woes — 
My heart still groweth sadder, 

While your joyous face I see ; 
For gone and lost for ever 
Is the time of love for me ! 

Oh, were I young and glad like you, 
As fresh, as innocent, and free, 

How might our hearts beat warm and true, 
How blest we might together be ! 



Oh, what a honeyed dream 
This life for us would be ! — 

But ill gay flowers beseem 
A hollow, wither'd tree ! 

My life is in its evening-red, 

And thine is in the sunny east ; 
My heart is dull, and cold, and dead, 

Thine beats with hope of life's gay feast — 
Thine eye sees coming pleasures, 

In the gold horizon's haze, 
Mine, backward-looking, measures 
The joys of vanish' d days. 

Then cast no more sweet smiles on me, 

Thou slim gazelle, thou budding rose ! 
Thy glance, though full of youthful glee, 
Awakes remembrance of my woes. 
I say " farewell " and wander 

O'er the world to meet my doom — 
You '11 find a friend — a fonder — 
And I shall find — a tomb. 

THREE WISHES. 

I have three wishes, which, at morn and eve, 

I breathe to heaven — may heaven my prayers receive ! 

The first — that Love's pure stream may flow for ever, 

Parch' d up by grief or angry passions never ; 

The second — that each step along my way 

May wake an echo in some pleasant lay ; 

And for the third, — when all my songs must close, 

And Love's pure stream with softer billows flows, 

That death may take me with a friendly hand, 

And guide me over to yon better land, 

Where Love's pure fountain shall for ever flow, 

And songs be all the speech the people know. 

AUTUMNAL FEELING. 

Oh, were it but the glow of the cheek 
That fades as fade the summer-days, 

I would not of the sorrow speak — 
But ah ! — the heart decays. 

The voice of youth must die away, 

The glance grows dull and cold ; 
And the breast that glow'd in love's spring-day 

Forgets its warmth of old. 

The lips may still, with wit's cold sheen, 

Disguise the inner gloom ; 
But ah, 'tis but deceitful green 

Arising on a tomb. 

The night comes on — the night of grief — 

The feeble glimmer dies ; 
And the heart would find in tears relief, 

But only findeth sighs. 

So poor and desolate we seem — 

The bloom of life is shed — 
Our happiness was all a dream, 

Our heart is cold and dead. 

THE DYING SWAN. 

Oh, as the swan dies let me die — 

As gently, as he floats along 
O'er the blue water, peacefully, 

And breathes away his soul in song, 



GEIBEL. Ill 


And dies when evening's parting ray- 


And the snow melts away and the icicle flows, 


Sheds golden kisses on the leaves : 


And the green in the meadows is gleaming ; 


Still, echoing in the woods, the lay 


And the soft, warm wind breathes a song, as it goes, 


All night a dying cadence weaves. 


" Wake violets, wake from your dreaming !" 


Oh, such a fate, at last, be mine ! 


warm, rustling breezes low in the dale ! 


In song my dying thoughts to tell, 


first sweet breath of the spring ! — 


And leave some tuneful, echoing line 


The world blooms out of the winter pale, 


Within the people's soul to dwell! 


And my heart begins to sing. 


Alas ! but only for the great, 


And the sky is still wondrously spreading and glowing 


The elect among the minstrel-quire, 


In deeper and deeper blue — 


Is such a death — a harder fate 


I know not what all this longing and growing 


Bids me without a song expire. 


Of, spring-time is striving to : 


Without a song I pass away — 


But my bosom grows wider and wider too, 


Dumb to the grave the dead they carry ; 


As in spring-time, in days of yore ; — 


And when the rite is done, that day, 


Oh, days of my youth, are you coming anew ? 


Not one to speak of me will tarry ! 


And Love ! are you coming once more? 


SONNET. 


SONNET. 


Art thou sent forth to wake the Poet's lay, 




Or do the Artist's work ? — scorn market-cries ! 


I hear the noise of parties calling me, 


The world, in every age, has turn'd aAvay 


" Come hither, Poet, and to us belong : 


From worth to favour mediocrities. 


Come be the minstrel of our company, 


Present a perfect picture to its eyes, 


And cheer our banquets with the festive song." 


Where all heaven's glories shine with purest ray; 


I answer, No ! I must not join your throng; 


Then one where colours, harshly mixed, surprise — 


I cannot swear to serve — I must be free — 


And see of which, " 't is good," the world will say ! 


Following the star that rules my destiny — 


Then boldly scorn its censure and its praise. 


My guiding genius must not suffer wrong. 


You have enough of joy within your breast 


Like to a traveller, at his left the sea 


If heavenly inspiration crowns your lays. 


Roars loudly, at his right, the narrow way 


Be like the nightingale, inspired and bless'd 


Is bounded by the cliff — I seem to be ; 


Her bridal-music for the spring to raise, 


And, as I wake my solitary lay, 


Night only listenings — all things else at rest ! 


I, sometimes, like King Maximilian, say, 




Some guardian angel guides me lest I stray. 


SILENT LOVE. 




" You ask me, fair-haired maiden, 


THE KING'S BEARD. 


Why my lips their silence keep : 




'Tis because true love is lying, 


On the bench at the " Golden Grapes," 


Love is lying 


In the merry month of May, 


In my heart's deep. 


There sat, among fresh-blooming roses, 




Three jolly good fellows one day. 


" Does the flame break forth in singing 




When it soareth in the sky, 


The first had a horn at his girdle, 


Its wings out-spreading high and red ? 


The second a feather in cap, 


So high and red, 


All booted and spurred was the third — 


But silently. 


All excellent friends to the tap ! 


" The rose too makes no speeches 


The host brought in full sparkling cans, 


When her blossoms ope in light, 


Set the wine on the table right cheerily, 


She glows and breathes in silence through, 


And all these three very good fellows 


In silence through 


Were drinking and gossiping merrily. 


The summer-night. 






Then one of the three I have sung of — 


" And so my love is living 


The hunter — the man dress'd in green — 


Since you gave yourself to me ; 


Told a tale of the Emperor Redbeard ; 


It lives and glows for ever, 


For the king he declared he had seen. 


Glows for ever 




But silently ! " 


" On the viny-crown'd bank of the Rhine, 


I saw the old Emperor pass — 




For in the cathedral at Mainz, 


SONG. 


That day he was going to mass. 


The sun is up ; from his cloudy belt, 


" And a reverend figure was he — 


His radiance is suddenly glowing : 


He looked like a king to be feared, 


Fields, forests and streams the magic have felt, 


And down to his breast, at the least, 


And are rustling and waving and flowing. 


Fell flowing, his long, brown beard." 



112 



DEEG.— FREILIGRATH. 



Then the second good fellow began, — 
The man, as I said, with the feather. — 

" Hold ! what do you make of my eyes ? 
Your tale does not well hold together. 

"For I 've seen the Emperor too, 
In his castle — I have it all pat — 

He was standing upon the balcony, 

And his beard was as Mack as my hat ! " 

Then up from the bench jump'd the third 
And ran to join swords with the two — 

This man who was booted and spurred — 
And his anger was dreadful to view ! 

" You botb go to pot in a hurry, 

For liars ! — I '11 trust my own sight — 

I saw the king too at Cologne, 

And his beard, I will swear it, was white/ " 

Oh then there was stormy contending, 
And oaths upon brown, black, and white, 

And blades from their sheaths were outcoming, 
All mad to make war for the right. 

Then the cans were upset in the tustle, 
The good wine was spilt on the ground ; 

And, after a terrible bustle, 

Some drops, too, of blood might be found. 

And in anger these three fellows parted — 

So fruitlessly ended the fight — 
Each walked on his way sullen-hearted, 

And none bade another " good-night ! " 

Good fellows all, learn from my story, 
To shun a most mischievous thing — 
When you sit with the wine-cup before ye, 



Don 



T FIGHT FOR THE BEARD OF A KING 



Here we bid farewell to Emanuel Geibel. The 
world makes great demands on the poet in our 
time, and asks for something more than melodious 
verses ; but, in the days of the Troubadours, 
Geibel would have made a fortune and won some 
bright lady, for he can set his own songs to music, 
and sing them. 



DEEG. 

Deeg is a poet sprung from the peasantry whose 
productions have awakened some attention in Ger- 
many ; but we do not find in them any remarkable 
individuality. Thus he remembers his early life : — 

CHILDHOOD. 

O days of childhood fled ! 

When in the forest deep, 
In my first books I read 

'Mid the tinkling bells of sheep — 

Alas ! that I should five to say 

Such bright, young days have pass'd away ! 

Oh days when flowers were bright, 
And I plucked them with a hand 

That trembled with delight, 
From the fresh and dewy land. 
Alas ! that I should five to say, 
Such flowery days have pass'd away ! 



Oh days of golden dreams 

Of love and friendship strong ! 
Like the opening morning's beams 

When my soul was full of song — 

Alas ! that I should live to say, 

My golden age has pass'd away ! 

Like other young poets of the day, Deeg has 
written political verses. Here is a sonnet against 
the censorship. 

SONNET. 

O German language, strong in prose and rhyme, 
Like thy own people, sprung from mother earth, 

How hast thou kept throughout the flow of time, 
The true original lustre of thy birth ! 

Oh sword, once waved in many a battle-field, 
Once glittering when swung by Luther's hand, 

Or ringing loudly on the Gallic shield, 

When Lessing drove French lyrics from the land — 

Now must thou be suspended for a show ? 

Or carve at table, like a homely blade? 
" No — " says the wisdom of the Censor — " no ! 

Out of the sword be a stiletto made, 
And let the German people, in their strife, 
Employ no sword — only the bandit's knife ! " 



CHAPTER XII. 

FREILIGRATH. 

The world has heard more of Ferdinand 
Freiligrath, than of any recent German poet. 
His poems are the lays of a traveller, though many 
of them were conceived in a merchant's counting- 
house. 

He was born at Detmold, in 1810, and was 
destined by his father to sit upon a stool in a mer- 
chant's counting-house ; but the young book-keeper 
found materials for poetry even in bills of lading, 
and while writing out invoices of sugar, oil, tea 
and coffee, his imagination was carried away over 
tropic seas to foreign climes. The success which 
attended his volume of poems enabled him to leave 
the counting-house, and a pension from the King 
of Prussia placed him in circumstances of liberty 
and independence. Lately he has relinquished this 
pension on account of political sympathies with the 
movement party in Prussia, and has devoted his 
poetry to political topics. 

VISION OF TRAVELLERS IN THE DESERT. 

'Mid the desert in the night, we rested on the ground : 
Near their unbridled steeds my Bedouins slept around. 
On the mountains of the Nile shone the moonlight far 

away; 
"White bones of dromedaries on the sand around us lay. 

I lay awake — my saddle for a pillow neath my head, 
And a wallet of dry dates, the desert-traveller's bread ; 
My caftan well spread out, o'er my feet and o'er my breast, 
And near me, firelock, sword, and spear, to guard our 
nightly rest. 



FREILIGRATH. 



113 



Deep the stillness ! only broken by our fire that smouldered 

low, 
Or the screeching of the vulture, the desert's carrion-crow, 
Or, anon, a sleeping steed would stamp upon the sand, 
Or a Bedouin, in his dream, grasp'd his firelock in his hand. 

Suddenly shook the earth — shadows broke the moon's pale 
light- 

The creatures of the desert fled along in wild affright— 

Our horses rear'd and snorted — grasp'd his flag our leading- 
man, 

Then dropp'd it, and he mutter'd, " ha ! the Spirits' 
Caravan ! " 

It comes ! before the camels the spectral drivers glide, 
Unveil'd, luxurious women in the lofty saddles ride, 
Beside walk Arab maidens, pitchers bearing, like Rebecca, 
And dark-brown chieftains follow— like the wind they 
sweep to Mecca. 

And more and more come on— who can count the endless 

train ?— 
See from the scattered bones rise the camels up again ; 
From the sand the wind has driven o'er the thirsty desert 

plains, 
The sun-burnt men arise, and seize their camels' reins. 

For lo, it is the night when all this sea of sands 
Has ever swallow'd up, and whose dust is on our hands, 
Whose skulls our horses' hoofs have daily trodden down, 
Arise, and go, in hosts, to pray in the holy town ! 

And more are coming still— the last have not gone by, 
As the first with slacken'd reins, returning, past us fly— 
Ere my startled steed could break his cord, they have 

rush'd on more and more, 
From yon green hills before us, down to Babel-Mandeb's 

shore. 

Every man beside his steed ! and firmly hold your ground, 
No trembling like a timid herd when the lion prowls 

around ! 
Let their wildly-floating garments fan your facesas theyfly; 
Call on Allah, as the spectral dromedaries hurry by. 

Stand firmly till the morning-wind your turban-feathers 

waves, 
The morning-breath and the morning-glow will warn 

them to their graves ; 
These nightly hosts will all be dust again at break of day— 
And my steed already hails the dawn, with a courageous 

neigh. 

THE LION'S RIDE. 

King of the desert is the Lion : when he wills to scour 

the ground, 
He hastens to the slimy pool, with quivering rushes 

fringed around : 
Where drink the giraffe and the gazelle, he lies with 

rushes shadow'd o'er ; 
And, trembling o'er the mighty one, rustle the leaves of 

the sycamore. 

While in the Kraal of the Hottentot the evening-fire is 

glowing, 
And the signals on the Table Mount no more their hues 

are showing ; 
While the Caffer wanders lonely through the shadowy 

Karroo ; 
In the bushes sleeps the antelope, and, beside the stream, 

the gnu. 

Then paces o'er the desert-sand the cameleopard high, 
To slake at the lagoon her tongue all parched and dry, 
Thirsting, o'er the wilderness she hastens in the cool, 
And, kneeling, bends her slender neck beside the muddied 
pool. 



What stirs among the rushes ! with a roar and with a 

bound, 
The lion on her shoulder springs, as she starts up from 

the ground, 
The muscles of her nape his savage teeth pierce low in, 
And o'er her spotted shoulders his yellow mane is flowing. 

With rapid feet she scours o'er the moonlit wilderness ; 
Her eyes are straining wildly with her terrible distress ; 
From her brownly-spotted neck drops of blood, dark-crim- 
son, start ; 
The silent desert listens to the beatings of her heart. 

Like the cloud whose light led Israel into the Arabian land, 

Behind her, as she goes, springs up a spire of sand, 

Her flight, attends thevulture, croaking, whirring through 

the air, 
And panthers and hya?nas hasten on the prey to share. 

Reeling 'neath her rider, she falls, with rattling throat, 
Bedeckt with dust and foam her sleek and spotted coat. 
Over Madagascar the dawn is growing bright — 
Thus the desert-king travels o'er his realm by night. 



A SEA- AD VENTURE. 

" I am sailing alone on the quiet sea, 

No billow waves over its glassy face, 

On the sands down below, through the water, I see 

The houses and towers of the sea-buried place. 

" In the days long ago, as the old fables say, 

A king drove his daughter, young, gentle and good, 

Away from his court, — o'er the hills far away 

She lived, with seven dwarfs, in the midst of a wood. 

" And when she soon died of the poisonous wine 
Which her mother mixed for her, so cruel and cold, 
The dwarfs, in their love, did her body enshrine 
In a coffin of crystal, and fair to behold ! 

" She lay in her shroud there, as white as the snow, 
With bright flowers on her bosom, all fragrant and fair, 
And oft, in their grief, did the woodland dwarfs go 
To gaze on her beauty and quietness there. 

" And so, in its beauty, the crystal sea 
Folds the corpse of the city, and many a wave 
Rolls over the palaces glorious to see, 
And halls of old princes and warriors brave. 

" But all through the silent and desolate scene 
No footstep is stirring, arises no sound — 
In markets and streets, through the salt-water green, 
Shoals of fish are now swimming and playing around. 

"And with glassy and meaningless eye-balls they stare — 
Through the windows and doors in the houses they peep, 
And see the inhabitants motionless there, 
All wrapp'd in unchanging and endless sleep ! 

" I will dive down to them — I will break through 
The magic that binds them, the sorcery of death ! — 
The old life and splendour shall waken anew, 
Revived by the glow of my warm, living breath. 

" And the markets and halls shall be sounding with 

cries — 
In the streets life shall flow, like a new-melted stream, 
Fair maidens shall open their bright-smiling eyes, 
And wonder how long they have pass'd in a dream !" 



114 



FREILIGRATH. 



He dives down below to awaken the dead — 
The magic of sleep binds his foot and his arm, 
And the weight of" the sea presses down on his head, 
As he sinks 'neath the ancient, invincible charm. 

And he dwells mid the houses of olden time, 
Where the pearl softly gleams and the amber glows, 
Mid the old city's glory ; and ne'er the rude rhyme 
Of the loud-singing fisherman breaks his repose. 

There is more interest in the following verses, 
where foreign scenery is sweetly blended with 
recollections of home and Fatherland. 

GERMAN EMIGRANTS. 

I cannot leave the busy strand ! 

I gaze upon you standing there 
And giving to the sailor's hand 

Your household furniture and ware : — 

Men, from their shoulders lifting down 
Baskets of bread, with careful hand, 

Prepared from German corn, and brown 
From the old hearth in Fatherland ; 

Black Forest maids — with sun-burnt faces, 
Slim forms, and neatly-braided hair, 

Come ; — each within the shallop places 
Her jugs and pitchers all, with care. 

The pitchers carried oft to fill 

At the familiar village spring — 
When by Missouri all is still 

Visions of home will round them cling ; — 

The rustic well, with stones girt round, 
The low stone wall they bended o'er — 

The hearth upon the family ground — 
The mantel-piece, with all its store ; — 

All will be dear, when, in the West, 
These pitchers deck the log-hut lone, 

Or when reach'd down, that some brown guest 
May quench his thirst, and travel on. 

Tired in the chase, the Cherokees 

Will drink from them on hunting-ground ; 

No more, from glad grape- gleaning, these 

Shall come with German vine-leaves crown'd ! 

Why, wanderers, must you leave your land? 

The Neckar-vale has wine and corn; 
Tall firs in our Black Forest stand ; 

In Spessart sounds the Alper's horn. 

Mid foreign woods you '11 long in vain 
For your paternal mountains green, 

For Deutschland's yellow fields of grain 
And hills of vines with purple sheen ! 

The vision of your olden time, 

Of all you leave so far behind, 
Like some old legendary rhyme, 

Will rise in dreams and haunt your mind. 

The boatman calls — depart in peace ! — 

God keep you, — man, and wife, and child ! 

Joy dwell with you ! — and fast increase 
Your rice and maize in vonder wild ! 



THE BURIAL OF THE BANDIT. 

A corpse upon a bier, 

Cold, pale, besmear'd with blood, 
Six men of the Banditti 

Are bearing through the wood : 
Six men, with long black hair, 

Well arm'd with gun and blade, 
Walk, silent, with the bier, 

Through the pine-tree valley's shade. 

Two firelocks with long barrels, 

And swords, unsheathed, laid 
Across, support the body — 

Of these the bier is made. 
Upon the swords he lies 

Who loved their clashing sound, 
His head, deep-gash'd and bloody, 

Hangs backwards to the ground. 

Wide gapes the ruddy wound 

Upon the drooping head, 
Where, in the evil hour, 

The bullet struck him dead ; 
And from his hair, all matted, 

The blood runs down apace, 
And, in the dry air clotted, 

Hangs on his neck and face. 

He lies with bloodshot eye, 

Of faded brown his cheek, 
And lips fast shut together 

A bitter scorn bespeak. 
His hand, as, in the fray, 

It held, till life was spilt, 
In its convulsive cramp, 

Still tightly grasps the hilt. 

The sword, whose lightning oft 

Was death to spies and foes, 
Hangs trailing on the ground 

And clinking as it goes. 
And drops of dark red blood 

Are dripping down the blade, 
As if weeping for the hand 

That once its movements sway'd. 

The left hand, knit together, 

Clings to the girdle-shawl, 
As it grasp'd it in the moment 

When struck the fatal ball. 
At his belt the sharp stiletto, 

Hangs; lace and bandage too 
Are waving in the wind, 

With his collar oft cut through. 

So pale upon his bier 

The dreaded chief reclines, 
And his followers bear the corpse 

Mid the gloomy Appenines. 
They bear him on their swords, 

To the forest's depth away, 
Afar from sunlit paths, 

Till the leader calls out — " stay!" 

The bier falls, rattling, down, 
In the darkness of the wood, 

His brothers lay his corpse 
And bury him in his blood. 



FREILIGRATH. 



15 



No coffin covers o'er him, 

They make his bed with haste 
And lay him in the earth 

With the dagger at his waist. 

The funeral is over, 

The grave is dark and lone ; 
The burial band, in silence, 

Leave their chief, without a moan. 
They seize and load their muskets — 

Hark ! a whistle loud and shrill — 
They dash into the covert 

Of the wood — and all is still ! 

Here is another gloomy sketch — a scene of life 
— or rather death — in Africa : — the black king of 
Congo is brought home, from the field of battle, 
and his concubines must go to wait upon him in 
the land beyond the grave ! 

A SCENE AT CONGO. 

Sultanas, fear not ! 'tis a festive day, 
Drink palm-wine from the ostrich-egg, be gay ! 
Haste, clothe you in your beautiful array, 
As when first oped for you the Harem's door ; 
A greater festival than all before 
Awaits you, ere the day is o'er. 

Hark, how the people shout ! batukas sound — 
Let scarlet robes fall, sweeping, to the ground — 
Hang all your sparkling beads your necks around — 
Tinge your dark cheeks with the rich, rosy die, 
And let your faces, in their colours, vie 
With the dark-glowing morning-sky. 

Now leave the Harem with your gladdest song, 
Dance to the river side, amid the throng, 
Where lies the king his warriors all among, 
Returned for ever from the desert-fray : 
Oft have you pined for him when far away ; 
Rejoice, for you shall rest with him to-day ! 

O yours is happiness ; for day and night 
The King is yours — he goes no more to fight 
(As far as where the Congo springs to light, 
The land, at last, is conquered and possest). 
Here on his copper-shield, in bloody vest, 
The wildest, bravest fighter lies at rest ! 

Start not ! — here lies the wildest, bravest Dschagga, 

His mantle, like the painted skin of the Quagga, 

Is marked with stripes of blood; fix'd, glares his eye; 

The arm is lamed, in battle lifted high, 

His pulse is still, that once would proudly swell 

At Tom-tom's thunder and the battle-yell. 

He saw the battle won as he was slain ; 
No fetisch-charm can waken him again ; 
He goes in yonder happy land to reign, 
(And you must haste to share in his repose,) 
Where every blade of grass and blossom glows 
Dark-crimson with the blood of all his foes. 

Well might he raise his brows in yonder land 

If we beside his grave should, lingering, stand 

And fail to send him all his female-band. 

His eye-ball rolls — palm-branches o'er him fling — 

Prepare the swords and clubs — dance in a whirling ring — 

Receive your death-strokes — go to join the King ! 



Some of the peculiarities of Freiligrath may be 
explained by his definition, or rather exemplifica- 
tion, of poetry contained in the following stanzas: — 

The rider slowly through the silent dell 
Guided his steed. On breast and shoulders fell 
His beard and hair down, thickly curled and long. 

He gave his weary horse the slackened rein ; 

And, 'mid the dark firs, breath'd a mournful strain, 
" God, why hast thou bestow'd the gift of song?" 

For long years, sleeping in my silent breast, 
Like ore in the mine, I knew not, in my rest, 
That songs lay hidden in my bosom low : 
Alas, that I should ope the secret door — 
Out from my heart, like life-blood warm, they pour, 
Not to be stay'd — I bleed as on they flow. 

None knows my pain. Smiling, they say around — 

" See, that is good — a Poet we have found — 

There was a ray of genius in that line." 

Or, " from this spring of song, if God so will, 
A fair, broad river may expand and fill, 

And o'er the land, with mighty current, shine." 

O leave me, let me walk in my own way, 

Nor hear your wearying queries every day. 

" Speak, poet, tell us — what is poesy ? " 

You only laugh when from my soul I speak, 
With tearful eye and with a glowing cheek, 

And look on you and answer dreamily : — 

"When, in the wood, one climbs to the topmost bough 
Of an oak, and mid its rustling, fragrant leaves 
Sits rocking, and his arms together weaves, 
And dreams and muses of his distant love, 
And, through the foliage, green and bright, below 
Sees, lying in its nest, a turtle-dove ; 

" Or when you ride into the breaking sea 

On some strong fisherman's shoulders, and you lay 

Upon his bristly head the Odyssey, 

And sing and carol, mid the tossing spray, 
Till, all amazed, the fisherman will say, — 

' I 've got a madman on my back at play.' 

" When on a steed, with two or three beside, 
You dash along in wild and venturous ride, 
See, how the straining coursers snort and blow, 
And, leaning forward in the maddening race, 
The long, black mane is flowing in your face. 
See, that is poetry — if you will know. 

" Or when, at night, you drive across a flood, 
On some long, hollow-sounding bridge of wood, 
Till the hoofs clatter, with a sharper sound, 

Suddenly treading on the hard, paved ground, — 
Then the first stroke of the iron on the stone 
Has poetry, believe me, in its tone. 

" Or when you, like a swan with snowy breast, 
Through the blue twilight, in a little boat, 
Mid the dim ships, across the haven float, 
Till, suddenly, your shallop comes to rest 
Beside some mighty ship's majestic breast — 
So near a palace lies some cottage-nest ! — 

" Or when, soft-swinging in the evening breeze, 
A negro on the rigging lies at ease, 
i 2 



116 FREILIGRATH. 


Drinks in the coolness of the parting day, 


The flowers and branches cunningly 


And lazily hums o'er some foreign lay — ■ 


Round every picture twin'd, 


"lis poetry — for me; for, star-like, there 


In every curious leaf and bloom 


Shine his white eyeballs through the misty air. 


Some meaning for the mind ! 


" And 'twould be poetry if this black steed 


And my mother, as she taught me, 


That bears me now — sprungfromthe Danish breed — 


When questioning, I came, 


Seized with affright, in this lone dell should rear, 


Tells every picture's story, 


And dash me on these rocky splinters here — 


Gives every place its name, 


Blood streaming from my head and sudden night 


Fills with old songs and sayings 


All thickly gathering o'er my fainting sight — 


My memory all the while — 




My father sits beside us 


" Then, as I oped my eyes and caught the ray, 


And listens with a smile. 


For the last time, of the departing day, 




And saw my good steed standing, with droop'd head, 


childhood, lost for ever ! 


As if he sorrowed for his rider dead, 


Gone, like a vision, by — 


And, bending over, strove to cherish me 


The pictured bible's splendour, 


With his warm breath — that would be poetry ! " 


The young, believing eye, 




The father and the mother, 


THE PICTURED BIBLE. 


The still, contented mind, 




The love and joy of childhood, — 


Friend of my early days, 


All, all are left behind ! 


Thou old, brown, folio tome, 




Oft opened, with amaze, 




"Within my childhood's home ; 
Thy many pictured pages, 




THE REVENGE OF THE FLOWERS. 


Beheld with glad surprise, 


On her soft and snowy pillow 


Would lure me from my playmates 


Lay the maiden wrapt in sleep : 


To Oriental skies. 


On her glowing cheek her eye-lash 




Cast a shade of purple deep. 


Of foreign zones the portals 




Thy magic keys unfolding — 


On a stool of rushes near her 


In thee, as in a mirror, 


Stood a vase of many hues 


The eastern lands beholding, 


Full of glittering flowers, just gathered 


I saw before me spreading 


Freshly from the evening dews. 


A world of new delight — 




Palms, deserts, camels, shepherds 


Scented vapours fill'd the chamber 


And tents of snowy white. 


Where the lady fair reposed ; 




Warmly glow'd the night of summer — 


I found in thee, for friends, 


Doors and windows, all were closed. 


The wise and valiant men 




Of Israel, whose heroic deeds 


Deep the stillness — list ! a rustling 


Are writ with holy pen ; 


Mid the flowers and leaflets fair — 


And dark-brown Jewish maidens 


Round the vase of many colours 


With festive dance and song, 


Whispers fill the scented air. 


Or fairly dressed for bridal, 




Thy pictured leaves among. 


From the cups of all the flowers, 




Tiny, misty, ghost-like, see, — 


The old life patriarchal 


Faery forms, with shields and crowns, 


Did beautifully shine 


Rise, a motley company ! 


With angels hovering over 




The good, old men divine. 


From the purple -bosom' d Rose 


Their long, long pilgrimages 


Springs a lady slim and fair : 


I traced through all the way, 


Pearls are glistening, like the dew, 


While on the stool before me, 


In her long and flowing hair. 


Thy pages open lay. 






From the Monkshood's tiny cap 


I feel as if thy covers 


Towers a knight of fiery mien, 


Were opened for me now, 


Mid the dark-green leaflets glitter 


Again to see thy wonders, 


Sword and helm, with angry sheen. 


I bend my eager brow ; 




Again behold thy pictures, 


On his helmet nods a feather 


With rapt and earnest gaze, 


Of the heron, silver-gray. 


In fresh and shining colours, 


From the Lily wakes a maiden 


As in my early days. 


Veiled in gossamer array. 


The borders of grotesque, 


From the Afric Marigold 


With figures strange and wild, 


Starts a negro — bright the sheen 


I see their subtle tracery, 


Of his tiny, golden crescent, 


Admiring, as a child, 


Glittering on his turban green. 



FREILIGRATH. 



17 



Splendid from the Crown Imperial 
Towers a sceptre-bearing king : — 

From the Iris blue, a huntsman, 
Rising, joins the faery ring. 

From the leaves of the Narcissus 

Steps a youth, with pensive air, 
To the bed, and glowing kisses 

Presses on the maiden fair. 

All the faery forms together 

Crowd, the pillowed head they cover. — 
Singing, with a dreamy music, 

Round the sleeping maiden hover. 

" Maiden, maiden, from the garden 

You have culled us, cruelly, 
In your chalice, many-coloured, 

Here to wither and to die. 

" Happily we lived together, 

On our mother's kindly breast ; 
Sunbeams, through the green boughs breaking, 

Kiss'd us in our shelter' d nest. 

" Breath of spring-time, softly blowing, 
Cooled the noonday's fervid glows ; 

And, at night, for faery-pastimes, 
From our bloomy cells we rose. 

" Gentle dews and rains fell on us — 

Here we fade in sickly air — 
Ere we perish we must be 

Revenged upon thee, lady fair !" 

Ceased the song, and now around her 

Closely all the Spirits press'd 
Clustering, hovering, breathing round her, 

While she lay in sultry rest. 

What a whispering ! what a rustling ! 

How the maiden's cheeks are glowing ! 
Scented vapours float around 

The faeries warmly on her blowing. 

Till the sun the chamber brightens — 

Faery-forms and shadows flee — 
On her pillow, still in slumber, 

Cold and pale the maiden see ! 

Faded, 'mid her faded blossoms, 
— Still her cheek is faintly red — 

Lies the flower-offending maiden, 
In the scented chamber — dead ! 



DEATH OF THE EMIGRANT-LEADER. 

" In the fog the sails are dripping, 

Mist lies thickly o'er the bay. 
On the masts suspend the lanterns — 

Sea and sky are leaden-gray. 
Deadly weather! sickness-breathing — 

Come to prayers, with cover'd head, 
Women, come and bring your children — 

In the cabin see the dead." 

And the German peasant-people, 
With the Boston seaman, go 



Down the ladder, bow their heads 

In the cabin small and low; 
There the pilgrims, new homes seeking, 

Sailing o'er the western sea, 
Find, in burial-garments lying, 

The leader of their company. 

He had built of German firs 

The raft which all their chattels bore 
Along the Neckar to the Rhine, 

And down the Rhine to the sea-shore. 
The old man, with a heavy heart, 

Torn loose from his paternal ground, 
Had said to them, " we must depart — 

Another country must be found : 

" In the West our day is breaking — 

Westward lies our morning-red — 
Let us raise our log-huts yonder 

Where freedom lives within a shed. 
Let us sow our sweat-drops yonder 

Where they will not idly sleep — 
Yonder let us turn the clods 

Where he who ploughs may dare to reap ! 

" To the old, unbroken forests, 

Let us all our households bear, 
Plant them 'mid the wide savannahs — 

I will be your patriarch there. 
From our land, like those old shepherds, 

Famed in bible-story, going, 
Let our guiding, fiery pillar, 

Be the light for ever glowing. 

" In that constant light confiding, 

I will lead you to your rest : 
Happy, for my children seeing 

New homes rising in the West. 
Children, 'tis for you I travel — 

(Home would give these limbs a grave) 
'Tis for you I bind my girdle 

And nerve my heart to cross the wave. 

" Up ! away ! your Goshen leaving, 

Like the men of olden day." 
Ah, he only saw, like Moses, 

Canaan's pastures far away ! 
On the sea the old man died — 

He and all his wishes rest : 
Nor success nor disappointment 

More shall move his quiet breast ! 

Now the men without a leader 

Come to give him to the deep : 
Children hide themselves in terror 

While their mothers come to weep. 
And the men, with earnest faces, 

Gaze upon the foreign shore, 
Where the patriarch, old and saintly, 

Guides their pilgrimage no more. 

"In the fog the sails are dripping, 

Sleeps the bay in misty gloom. 
Breathe a prayer — the ropes are slipping — 

Give him to his watery tomb." 
Tears are flowing, waves are plashing, 

Sea-birds scream above the dead. 
For fifty years he plough'd the ground ; 

But 'neath the billows rests his head ! 



18 



FREILIGRATH. 



THE MIRAGE. 

I am looking o'er the pennants that in the heaven fly — 
Upon my feathered turban you cast your smiling eye. 
" In thissea-surrounded yacht tell a tale of sandy ground — 
Give a picture of the desert where that ostrich-plume was 
found." 

Well ! let me hide my brow in the hollow of my hand- 
There ! ships and flags are gone— see, the desert's glowing 

sand ! 
Lo, the country of my people — in her blighted, fiery dress 
Of endless, yellow sands, see Sahara's wilderness ! 

Who are journeying through the lion's land ? see, yonder, 

in the blue, 
Their spears are gleaming, lo, the caravan of Timbuctoo ! 
Banners and Emir's purple robes float, clouds of sand 

among, 
And the camel's melancholy head nods, towering o'er the 

throng. 

In a crowded troop they ride— sand and sky are mingled 

there — 
Now the pilgrims fade away in the brimstone-coloured air. 
No fear that we shall lose them — we can trace them all 

the way, 
For the tokens of the desert will guide us lest we stray. 

See here, as for a mile-stone— a dromedary dead — 

A pair of bare-necked vultures have settled on his head. 

Beside them, disregarded, while they gorge themselves 

with prey, 
Some Arab Scheik has left here his turban on the way. 

See here the cloth of the Schabrack hangs on a tamarisk- 
thorn — 
Here lies a leathern water-bottle, dusty, burst and torn — 
Who trod upon it, in his thirst, with fierce, delirious eyes ? 
The Scheik of Biledulgerid— dark- bearded— here he lies ! 

His steed fell in the rear-guard— the Scheik was left behind— 
His favourite bride her fingers within his girdle twined — 
How sparkled, as she rode with him, the dark eyes of his 

bride ! 
Now he drags her o'er the sand, like a scimitar, at his side. 

The hot sand, beat, at night-time, by the Lion's tufted tail, 
Is marked along the way by her dark hair's flowing trail. 
The desert from her lips sucks the drops of spicy dew, 
And its flinty gravel reddens her limbs to burning hue. 

The Emir faints and staggers — his blood is boiling high — 
Hisf orehead's blue vein quivers— out-star ts his thirsty eye — 
With one last kiss he wakens the Algerine, his bride, 
Then, with a bitter curse, falls over at her side. 

She wakens— " Are you sleeping ? my love, see what is here ! 
The sky that was as brass shines like steel or water clear. 
Where lay the desert's yellow, a blazing light appears, 
Like the splendour of the sea as it breaks beside Algiers. 

"It sparkles so enticingly, and throws its freshening spray, 
And like a mirror glitters— 'tis the Nile, the Nile, I say !— 
No— it must be the Senegal ; for southwards we have come — 
Or it may be the open sea as it rolls beside my home. 

" 'Tis water ! Love, awaken now !— my robes are cast aside- 
Let us bathe our burning bodies in the cool and freshening 

tide: 
But one deep draught, one freshening plunge, — new life 

shall fill my breast — 
And in the castle on the shore we '11 find a place of rest. 

" Upon the lofty turrets the scarlet banners fly— 
The walls with lances bristle— golden mosques are tower- 
ing high — 



High-masted vessels in the bay are riding all in proud 

array — 
Our pilgrims now are filling their bazaar and caravanserai 

" Wake, love, my tongue is parching— night will soon be 

gathering here—" 
He rais'd his eyes and said— "'tis the mirage dry and 

drear — 
A mockery worse than the simoom ! some evil demon's 

play ! " 
He hush'd — the meteor vanish 'd— on the sand two corses 

lay. 

Thus spoke the Moor at Venice, of the desert country 

drear— 
His words were sounding pleasantly in Desdemona's ear. 
He ceased, as now the vessel struck against the harbour's 

side, — 
To the palace of Brabantio he led his destined Bride. 



AFRICAN LOYALTY. 

I strike my brow upon thy throne-steps, king \ — 
I lead this host, a hundred thousand strong, 

Of slaves I drive for thee this long, black string, 
Wrestlers and swordsmen come with us along, 

Apt dagger-men that cunningly can slay — 

All these, and booty rare beside, I bring thee for a 
prey. 

Won is the fight ! We were good warriors all — 
The foe-king fell — a fighter fierce and tall — 

My blade was quick and sharp — his neck was bare — 
His carcase left will glut the tigress well — 

To thee, O king, upon this golden shell- — ■ 

I here present his head with bloody, dripping hair. 

Ha ! see ! it drips not now with spikenard-oil — 
Thy foeman's blood anoints, O King, thy soil — 

Yea, it shall be anointing oil for thee — 

This dark, wild Dschagga's blood — of victory 

The proof and the reward — I pour it down 

Upon thy head and o'er thy golden crown ! 

And this bright Dschagga's crown shall now be thine ! 

Upon thy forehead let me see it shine ! 
Ah ! there 'tis better than upon the dead ! 

Bring out the slaves ! swing round your clubs and, 
crying, 
With trumpets' noise and howlings of the dying, 
Aloud, shout " hail, O king of Dahomy, dread ! " 



THE NEGRO-PRINCE. 

A BALLAD. 



Through the valley of palms as his warriors pass'd, 
A purple shawl round his head he cast ; 
He flung o'er his shoulders a lion's skin 
As the cymbals raised their warlike din. 

As his host pass'd along, he stay'd to enfold 
In his ebony arm, deck'd with bracelets of gold, 
His moorish maiden, and thus said he : — 
" Prepare for our coming to feast with thee ! 

"Pearls I will bring thee, all glittering, rare, 
To twine 'mid the curls of thy dark, flowing hair, 
Which the divers have brought from the coral caves, 
Where the Persian Gulf rolls its foaming Avaves. 



FREILIGRATH. 



19 



" And the ostrich's feather must wave on thy head, 
And nod its white plume to thy stately tread ; 
Make ready the tent and our banquet prepare, 
Crown the cup of our triumph with garlands fair." 

From the tent-curtains of glimmering white 
Steps the dark Prince ready-arm' d for the fight, 
As the moon from her curtains of clouds looks out 
With shadows of darkness girt round about. 

His hosts in the valley came shouting to meet him ; 
His horses were stamping their hoofs there to meet him : 
For him swells the tide of true negro blood 
As the Niger rolls on its mysterious flood. 

" Now lead us to conquest — lead on to the fight !" 
They fought from the morning till deep in the night : 
Trumpets of elephant's tusks with their bray 
Maddened the warriors to rush in the fray. 

The lion and serpent were scared at the sound 
Of the rattling tom-tom with skulls hung around, 
And their banner was waving, a sign of dread, 
O'er the desert's yellow, soon dyed into red. 

Fierce in the valley of palms was the fight, 
While she, in the tent, spread the banquet so bright ; 
The wine of the palm in each goblet she pours, 
And twines the tent-staves with glittering flowers. 

With the pearls from the Persian billows, so fair, 
She decks the dark curls of her flowing hair; 
The ostrich's plume waves aloft on her brow ; 
Bright shells on her arms and her bosom glow. 

She sits at the door of her lover's tent, 
And lists to the thunders of battle blent : 
The sun fiercely strikes in the noon-tide hot ; 
Her garlands are wither' d — she heeds it not! 

The sun sinks down and the evening grows, 
The night- dew rustles, the fire-fly glows, 
And the crocodile, from the tepid pool, 
Looks out into the evening cool. 

The lion is up and roars out for his prey — 

The elephant-herd through the wood bursts away : 

The tall cameleopard is gone to repose — 

Bright eyes and bright flowers in the darkness close. 

Her bosom is swelling and heaving with care — 
A messenger comes with a tale of despair : — 
" Lost is the battle, thy lover a slave ! 
By the men of the west carried over the wave !" 

With wild-scatter'd hair she falls flat on the ground, 
Her ornaments all from her bosom unbound, 
She tears out her jewels with violent hand, 
And buries her face in the glowing sand. 

This concludes the first part of the ballad : — in 
the second canto, the Negro-prince, Bajazzo, is 
found in captivity as a drummer in the service of 
Europeans. 

ii. 
To the tournament-lists, on the smooth, level ground, 
The people are hastening and crowding around, 
And trumpets and cymbals are hailing the meeting; 
But dull sounds the drum that Bajazzo is beating. 



Hither, O hither ! the crowd pours along ; 

The knights proudly ride and spur on through the throng 

On Turkish charger and British bay ; 

And the ladies are out in their brightest array. 

By the pavilion of cloth rich and rare 
Stands the dark negro with crisp, curling hair, 
And beats on the Turkish drum — its side 
Is deck'd with the lion's yellow hide. 

He sees not the knights as they gallop around — 
He sees not the steeds as they caper and bound — 
With a sultry eye and a fixed stare 
He looks on the lion's shaggy hair. 

He thinks of the Niger, remembers the day 
When he hunted the lion, in wilds far away — 
He thinks of the sword which in battle he bore, 
And then of the tent he must visit no more ! 

Of the flowers she had gather' d to welcome him there — 
Of the pearls she had twined in her dark-flowing hair — 
Tears fill his eyes, and, with muttering thunder, 
He beats on the drum till he bursts it asunder ! 



MOUNT NEBO. 

Upon the banks of Jordan, 

The host of Israel's name, 
All Jacob's seed encamped 

Who out of Egypt came : 
There lay the tribes, wide-spreading — 

There rest the pilgrims found, 
Weary, with long years' treading 

The sandy desert round. 

There, from their hands, the wanderers 

Laid all their staves aside, 
And, loosening their girdles, 

Spread all their garments wide. 
And on their robes reclining 

In beautiful array, 
The lank, embrowned travellers, 

With beards dark-curling, lay. 

Their tent-staves there were pitched, 

Their linen veils outspread, 
And, in the midst, was raised 

The tabernacle's head. 
Between them and the sun 

Green foliage shadows flings, 
They filled their leathern bottles 

At the fresh, cool, water-springs. 

With oil their bodies laving, 

They wash'd away the sand. 
The driver there was stroking 

The camel with his hand. 
And in the pastures round them 

The quiet cattle lay : 
Wild horses stared and bounded 

With flowing manes, away. 

The weary joined in praises, 
With hands upraised to heaven, 

That now to all their travels 
The longed-for end was given. 



120 



FREILIGRATH. 



But some were busy whetting 
Their swords, with eager hand, 

To combat for the pastures 

Of their rich, green, fatherland. 

It seemed for them awaiting' — 

A land of endless store, 
Like God's own garden smiling 

On Jordan's other shore. 
Through many a desert-journey 

In spirit they had seen 
That land of milk and honey 

Now lying there so green ! 

They shouted in the valley 

" Canaan," with joyous tone — 
Their leader up the pathway 

Of the mountain went alone : 
His snow-white locks were flowing 

About his shoulders spread, 
And golden beams were glowing 

Upon Ms reverend head. 

To see the promised country, 

Before he died, intent, 
Rapt in the glorious vision, 

He, trembling, forwards bent. 
There glittered all the pastures 

With thousand charms outspread — 
The land he sees with longing, 

The land he ne'er must tread ! 

The plains, far out extending, 

Are rich with corn and vines, 
And many a white stream, wending 

Through rich, green meadows, shines. 
With milk and honey flowing 

As far as eye can span, 
All in the sunshine glowing 

From Beersheba to Dan. 

" Canaan! mine eyes have seen thee ! 

Let death \mdreaded come ! 
In gentle whispers breathing, 

Lord, call thy servant home!" — 
On light, soft clouds descending 

Upon the mountain's brow, 
He came — the pilgrim-people 

Have lost their leader now ! 

Upon the mountain brightening 

'Tis glorious there to die, 
When all the clouds are whitening 

In the shining morning sky ; 
Far down below beholding, 

Wood, field, and winding stream — 
And lo, above, unfolding, 

Heaven's golden portals gleam ! 



IN THE WOOD. 

I walk within the wood, alone, 

With rustling leaves around ; 
No voice of human life disturbs 
These shadows with its sound. 

My heart expands and opens wide, 
My thoughts are free and clear; 

The stories of my childhood's days 
Reveal their secrets here. 



Yea— this is the enchanted wood- — 
All things that herein dwell- — 

The stones, the flowers, the trees, the birds,- 
Are fastened with a spell. 

The snake, on golden withered leaves 

Rolled up in glistening ring, 
With burnished scales, was, in old times, 

The daughter of a king. 

And, hid in yonder shady pool, 
Where comes the hind to drink, 

Lies sunk her palace beautiful, 
Far down below the brink. 

The king, his queen, and all their court, 
Are sitting, spell-bound, there, 

And knights, once armed for tournament, 
And ladies dazzling fair. 

The hawk, that flits and hovers round 

The borders of the wood, 
Is the enchanter sly, whose spell 

Confines them 'neath the flood. 

Ah ! could I know the counter-spell, 

And set the prisoners free, 
What sunny eyes and rosy lips 

Would breathe out thanks to me ! 

Then, on my bosom she should rest, 

Freed from her snaky fold, 
With timid glance — upon her head 

A coronet of gold. 

And from the pool the palace rich 

Should soar again to day, 
Upon the bank the knights would step 

In ancient proud, array. 

And here the king beside his queen, 

'Neath silken canopy 
Should sit — the forest-trees around 

Would quiver all ! with glee. 

The sly Enchanter, yonder hawk, 

Now smoothly floating round, 
Should then, a writhing snake again, 

Lie vanquished, on the ground. 

O forest-quiet ! forest-joys ! 

Fair dreams of olden times ! 
How softly do ye soothe the breast 

And call forth dreamy rhymes ! 



THE WAKER IN THE WILDERNESS. 

By the Nile, upon the deser£-sands, 
With kingly mien, a lion stands ; — 
His hue like the yellow desert glowing 
Or like the Simoom around him blowing. 



His mane, upon his mighty breast 
Is flowing like a royal vest ; 
And, like a diadem, he wears 
Upon his brow the bristling hairs. 



FREILIGRATH. 



121 



He roars aloud, with lifted head, 
The sounds so hollow, deep, and dread, 
Roll o'er the wilderness, and wake 
The echoes around Moeris' lake. 

The rosy-spotted panther shivers ; 
The fleet gazelle hears that and quivers ; 
The camel and the crocodile 
List to the roar along the Nile. 

Along the Nile the echoes bound ; 
The pyramids return the sound — 
The royal mummy, in the breast 
Of the pyramid, starts up from rest. 

He rises from his narrow bed — 
" Thanks, lion, for thy thunder dread ! 
Its rattling wakes me from my sleep 
Of many centuries long and deep. 

" What years have vanished since the day, 
— How have I dreamed the time away ! — 
When, flags and banners waving far, 
Thy fathers, lion, drew my car ! 

" In stately chariot on I roll'd, 
Its beam was wrapp'd around with gold — 
With gems its spokes and axles shine, — 
For hundred-gated Thebes was mine ! 

" This foot, all dry and withered now, 
Trod on the Ethiopian's brow; 
The desert's child beneath my tread 
Laid in the sand his woolly head. 

" This hand, so long in byssus furl'd, 
Once held a sceptre — ruled a world — 
And all yon hieroglyphics tell 
Was slumbering in my bosom's cell. 

" This pyramid, amid the sands, 
I built for me with thousand hands ; 
Upon my throne, with spears girt round, 
I sat and watch' d the rising mound. 

" In barge, with motion light and free, 
The Nile, my servant, carried me — 
The Nile still flowing, full and deep, 
While I have been so long asleep — 

fi And now 'tis darkness all around !" — 
The lion's roar had ceased to sound — 
In gloom the mummy's eyelids close 
And back he sinks to deep repose. 



TO THE SEA. 

O sea, didst thou not give the hue of fire, 
The holy purple, sign of royal blood, 

Unto the merchant-men of ancient Tyre ? 
O gloomy sea, lay not in thy dark flood 

The deep red dye that on the mantle glow'd 

Which round the heroic form of Cyrus flow'd. 

O purple, the dark sea-god's coloured child, 
Didst thou not flow round Alexander's throne 

Amid the Indians and the Scythians wild ? 
A maze of wonders in thy bosom lone 



Thou hast — is not the pearl thy child, O sea ? 
And did not Aphrodite spring from thee ? 

Yea, thou art rich : I see thy very deep — 
As to the old Sidonians their rich hue 

Thou gav'stwith which their woollen robes to steep; 
So hast thou bared thy bosom to my view, 

And shown me all thy splendours down below, 

That with their lustre all my songs may glow. 



The treasures old that in thy bosom rest — 

Rich cargoes, shining through thy waters blue, 

And heaps of gold in many a sunken chest ; 
And dragons, blowing blood-red flames, I view ; 

With sceptre-holding claws, in scales of scarlet dress'd, 

They watch beside the wealth that lies within thy 
breast. 

The serpent too, that, in meridian line, 

Spans half the world (no eye hath seen but mine) 

Licks, with seven tongues, the north-pole, icy cold, 
While on his back the tropic noonday shines, 

All burning through the water ; his tail twines 

Round the south-pole with many a scaly fold ; — 

The cities which thy waves have whelmed beneath — 
(The mermen at their gates, with burning eyes, 

Stand keeping watch, and shew their gleaming teeth.) 
Sea-polypuses too, with hairy plies, 

And that Leviathan sunk in thy well 

When he from heaven, in fragments broken, fell ; — 

And Neptune's grave, which at the sea-god's death, 
(When on him called no seaman's struggling breath, 

But when to holy ones the people turned — 
To fishermen by Lake Gennesareth ; — 

Another faith old Neptune's worship spurned — 

Fat hecatombs for him no more the Ethiop burned ; — ) 

His grave, in which old Greeks and Romans drown'd, 
And all the heroes whom the blood-stained Sound 

Of Salamis had whelmed, their sea-god laid, 
And, for a monument, instead of stones, 

Of their own mouldering bones a burial-mound, * 

With ghostly hands for the dead Neptune made ; — 

The flask that holds the wondrous magic ring, 
Beneath thy waves, of Solomon the King, 

And phials too, and jars of earthenware, 
That hold in spirits terrible to view, 

Demons, that if let loose, with sudden glare, 

Would wrap in flames thy billows, red and blue : — 

All these, thy wonders, thou to me hast shown 
O sea, that I may make thy marvels known, 

And tell of all thy splendours ere I die ; — 
Thou giv'st me colours for my poetry, 

I dip my hand into the purple sea, 

To paint my song as evening paints the sky. 

See, how it sparkles ! now 'tis purple red, 
Now like the striped flag at the vessel's head 

From China that by Subayara sails ; 

And now 'tis like the fish that in the bay 

Of Biscay turns his colours to the day, 

Leaps in the light, and suns his golden scales ! 



122 



FREILIGRATH. 



A tone of desolate feeling pervades 



THE EMIGRANT POET. 

I fell the fir that holds the eagle's nest, 

It comes down crackling, clouds of snow off-shaking : 

I hide from men, far in the forest's breast, 

My pathway through the firs and bushes breaking. 

I have no certain -place to rest my head — 

I five as wildly as the herds of deer. 
My first rude hut, a rugged fir-tree shed, 

I build among these western forests drear. 

Shapeless and rough — among the rocks I find 
Ferns and wild plants to fill the chinks between 

The planks and rafters left with mossy rind, — 
My axe wakes echoes in the valley green. 

With the yellow leaves a gentle breathing plays. 

Thou Spirit of these forests, spare my shed 
From hurricane, and from the lightning's blaze, 

From snows that shoot down from the mountain's 
head. 

No hostile Indian's hatchet strike the hut ! 

Its roof, the sun, through many summers, gild, 
Nor, like these traces of the elk's wild foot, 

Soon let it vanish from the snowy field ! 



This lonely forest-labour hath delight, 

Tbe foliage glitters in the morning beam ; 

The bushes glisten, every bough is bright — 
The firs' long lances shoot up in the gleam. 

With giant backs the mountains prop the skies, 
Still, and yet full of life, the prairie spreads ; 

The snowy dam across the river lies, 

Where broad-tailed beavers plaster up their sheds. 

In the far thicket rears his antlers high 

The stag ; the bison stoops to lick the snow ; 

The wood-cock shrills ; the timid hinds speed by ; 
The snowy level crackles as they go. 

Darts from his cave the lynx, with cunning eyes, 
The heavy elk trots thundering on his way, 

New songs, to cheer my lonely toil, arise, 

Hammering, I sing — but who can hear the lay ? 



Out from the forest ! — Spring has come at last, 
The snows of winter trickle from the heights ; 

The alligator, on the mud-bank cast, 

Suns his green scales, and in the blaze delights. 

The fish leap up ; the warblers shake their throats ; 

The tree-buds burst, and breathe out odours sweet, 
The boughs, where wood-doves sigh out tender notes, 

Strew their gay blossoms, rustling, at my feet. 

The wild stag in the valley tracks the hind ; 

The wood-grouse trims his feathers, shakes his comb ; 
The wild queen-bees their humming comets wind, 

And call their tawny followers out to roam. 

Will forest-honey trickle down for me ? 

Breathe out, fresh tendrils, with sweet fragrance 
fraught 



Refresh me : — like the forest's queenly bee, 
I guard, in lonely state, my hive of thought. 

* * * 
At eve I walk along the mountain's head, 

Lonely, to muse on love or soothe despair, 
Far down below the wide blue lakes are spread ; — 
I lift my voice, and shake the silent air. 

The melodies of days long gone to rest, 

Songs I have sung with friends a hundred times, 

I sing to these wild forests of the west, 

And teach them how to echo German rhymes. 

How echoed these old trunks, of rugged rind, 

How trembled the old trees through every spray, 

How shook the branch on which I lay reclined, 
And poured forth loudly Ludwig Uhland's lay ! 

How roused themselves, and rear'd their antlers high, 
The stags below, as from the mountain rung 

Our Kerner's songs and Korner's through the sky, 
And Schwab's and Arndt's and Schenkendorf's I 
sung. 

O, sadly sound the lyrics of my brothers, 
The songs of home in such a land as this ! 

I stand, like Orpheus, with the lays of others — 
Wild serpents here around me dance and hiss. 

* * * 
All night in deep and quiet sleep I lay, 
Dreaming of home and friends so far away, 
And trees beneath whose branches as I strayed, 
In childhood, there I wished my grave were made. 

The shadows of the living and the dead, 
Before me stood — " let none be grieved," I said, 
" That I forsook " — my comrade in the chase 
Awoke me with his cold hand on my face. 

I started up — " your sleep was sound," said he, 
" Sounder indeed than hunter's sleep should be — 
Rouse ! we must chase the bison-herd to-day, 
And through Lake Winipeg they 've swum away." 

* * * 
In the pale east the dawn began to glow, 
The mist rose thickly from the vale below. 
To chase the elk we rode at break of day ; 
Our hoofs woke forest-echoes on the way. 

The herd found shelter in the forest-shade, 
But o'er the grass the bloody dew betrayed 
A wounded elk : — we left the general chase 
To find him dying in his hiding-place. 

My comrade spoke ; " let others keep the trail 
Of the main herd along the snaky vale. 
The wounded elk will from his partners fly, 
And in the forest hide alone to die ; 

" He lies by some secluded, gloomy cave, 
Where, thick and dark, the fir-tree's branches wave: j 
See you the vulture o'er yon tall fir hover ? 
Beneath that tree the beast has found his cover." 

And so it was : beneath that fir, outspread, 
We found the bony, large-limb' d, creature dead ; 
His brown eyes rayless — all his wanderings past — 
Far from his brethren, here he breathed his last. 



FREILIGRATH. 



123 



My comrade, thrice, among the hushes nigh, 
Gave to the wind his piercing hunting-cry — 
I mused upon the sorrows of long years — 
Here died the elk, and here flowed down my tears. 



In silence sit the Indians round the flame, 
Stirring the embers — one of warlike name, 
The oldest of his trihe, hegins to tell 
Of him who 'mid the red men came to dwell. 

" Beside yon stream alone he loved to stray : 
His comrades through the hushes mark'd his way ; 
There, in strange accents none could understand, 
Flowed from his lips the language of his land. 

" Of all he said we knew no single word ; 
Yet with a willing ear the strain was heard : 
It had a music, as when warriors go, 
With equal steps, along the frozen snow. 

" "We '11 huild a hut upon his place of rest. 
He sleeps in peace — we granted his request — 
The hreath in which his spirit was released 
Was, 'Warriors, lay me looking towards the 

East!'" 



ON A GLORIOUS EVE OF WHITSUNTIDE. 

Will God again, in flames of glory, 

From his celestial throne, command 
The Spirit to confirm the story 

Of the old Apostolic Band ? 
Else whence this light so hrightly glowing, 

Each dark cloud fringing with its flame, 
Like glistening, snow-white mantle flowing 

Around an Ethiop's sahle frame? 

Forth from the open doors of heaven, 

The radiance over all is spread ; 
A halo to the earth is given, 

Like glory round a saintly head. 
The valleys all, the mountain-spires, 

The world and all therein, to-night, 
Are hathed in these celestial fires, 

As once the Twelve were crown'dwith light ! 

To-morrow is the celebration 

Of the out-flowing Spirit's might, 
And all the earth, in preparation, 

Is consecrated in this light ! 
And, like yon golden candles burning 

Around the glorious evening-skies, 
The Spirit's holy fire, returning, 

From every Christian heart shall rise ! 



MOSS-TEA. 

I'm but sixteen — yet here I bend me, 
Sitting like an old man gray, 

Hecla and the Geisers send me 
Drink from Iceland far away. 

From the isle whose rocky splinters 
Fringe the Arctic circle's plains, 

Hardened o'er with icy winters, 
Crusted o'er with lava-veins. 



O'er the subterraneous fires, 

'Neath the electric Northern Lights, 

Amid the Geisers' spouting spires, 
These mosses grew in wintry nights. 

To fill my veins with vigour new, 

Where mountains gape with many a rift, 

And shoot out flames, these bitters grew — • 
The cup of dark-green sap I lift — 

I drink — through all my veins run fires ! 

Before me lies the icy land, 
Where yawning craters shoot up spires, 

And throw to heaven the flaming brand. 

Again I feel me strong and bold ; 

Upon my face fall Hecla' s glows ; 
The wildness of the Scalds of old 

Along my freshening pulses flows ! 



We have reserved for the close of our notice of 
Freiligrath the following singular and graphic 
poem, in which the poet "gives tongues," not to 
" trees," but to "ships," lying in some harbour, 
and makes the figures at the prows — the Neptune, 
the Baffin, the Rhine, the Arab, and the Gladia- 
tor — tell stories of their adventures on the waves. 



THE CONVERSATION OF THE SHIPS. 

By the harbour, in the May-night, as to and fro I stray'd, 
The wind among the sails a dream-like murmur made; 
While frigates and corvettes were lying fast asleep, 
Bowsprit and foremast whispered together o'er the deep ; 

And with that whispering mingled the murmurs of the 

forms — 
Thetis and the Dioscuri (accustomed to the storms) 
And Robin Hood and (what a pair !) next Venus smiles 

divine — 
The Indus with his lotus-crown, with crown of reeds the 

Rhine. 

Such were then the speakers — while their keels in slumber 

lay, 
I heard them talk together in that pleasant night of May, 
Low waves, with gentle music, were plashing at their feet — 
As I listened to their stories an old anchor was my seat. 



THE NEPTUNE. 

See you the blood-stain, Rhine, 
That dyes my sandals red? — 

To honour me divine 

The Ethiop's victim bled. 

On the coast of Africa 
Before the bar we lay ; 

No northern eye had seen 
That solitary bay. 

'Twas at the end of night 

Sounds rose from the zebecque 

The call of the morning-watch 
Was heard upon the deck. 

The gay-striped zebra-herd 
Fled lightly by the waves ; 

The quagga in the bay 

His painted shoulders laves. 



124 



FREILIGRATH. 



Down from the mountain came 

A hoary Ethiop, bringing 
A victim, at his side 

An antelope was springing. 

Then, pierced through with his spear, 

The gentle creature fell; 
He cried — " O mighty sea ! 

Let my offering please thee well." 

The blood ran down the shore 
And mingled with the wave, 

Then rose upon the billow 
My sandal'd feet to lave. 

'Tis long since I have seen 

That solitary bay ; 
But the billows have not wash'd 

The crimson stain away. 

All winter through my masts 

The blustering north-wind blew — 

When shall the hoary Ethiop 
For me his rite renew ? 



THE EAFFIN. 

A purple offering too for me, 
In some far, polar bay shall flow, 

When, bound upon an icy sea, 
I he amid eternal snow. 

A wintry region ! all forlorn 

Beneath the stubborn, frozen rind 

The rein-deer digs with branched horn, 
His meal of scanty moss to find. 

In his low hut on yonder shore 
The stunted Laplander abides ; 

The blocks of ice he covers o'er 

With thatching made of rein-deer hides. 

He comes and chooses from the herd 
His favourite deer, and, with his knife, 

Upon the frozen plain of snow 

Pours out the purple stream of life. 

It gushes from the victim's throat, 

Runs down and leaves a crimson stain ; 

But icy winds soon stop its flow, 
And fix it on the frozen plain. 



THE RHINE. 

I never sailed by Guinea's coast, 
Nor from the pole my tale I bring ; 

But of the German stream I boast, 
The vine-clad Rhine, the river-king ! 

'Twas not the season when the vine 
With purple clusters crowns the hills ; 

But when the bright, green tendrils twine 
And every twig with juices fills. 

The Spring went forth with power divine, 
O'er all the gardens of the Rhine, 

And saw, delighted, through the land, 
The blooming wonders of his hand. 



Old ivied castles, ruins gray, 

And abbeys rise along the way, 
Swords, helmets, golden treasures shine 

Beneath the billows of the Rhine. 

With vine-leaves crown'd, with German tales, 
How very strange must I appear, 

Borne from the Rhine by ocean-gales, 
Among your foreign figures here ! 



THE ARAB. 

Come, your stories please me well — 
Haste, unlock your fable's store ; 

Here the jackal's nightly yell 
Interrupts the tale no more. 

Come, a friendly interchange — 
Foreign tales have their delights; 

I will give you leave to range 

Through Scheherezade's " thousand nights. 

Once the warrior from the West, 

Came to Araby the Blest, 
And laid aside his coat of mail 

While listening to the Bedouin's tale. 

The night-wind blew together there 
The swarthy and the golden hair ; 

Of German and Arabian blood, 
The steeds together sleeping stood. 

And sword and spear lay still that night, 
Though once they cross' d in angry fight ; 

Arabian tales and German too, 

Beguiled the hours till morning blew. 

The German's tale is like the light 
Of yonder moon, so cold and chaste; 

The Arab's is a spectre bright, 

And dazzling o'er the sandy waste. 



the gladiator. 

And what is mine ? in the South Sea 
My gallant ship was lost, last year — 

She sunk with all her company — 
A reef of coral was her bier. 

A vessel from Archangel sail'd 

Beside me then — its name the Lena — 

I struck the rock — my keel was nail'd 
Upon the reef of Schaumarena. 

The loud winds through my rigging yell, 
My helm was gone, my masts were bending 

The Gladiator wrestled well, 

In vain, with ribs asunder rending ! 

Down went the ship ; the foaming wave 
Above the top-mast pennant curled ; 

I broke away and 'scaped a grave, 
Along the billows leewards hurled. 

I wrestled with the billows well — 

(A Gladiator stoutly dies) 
A soft white arm, above the swell 

Reached out, itself around me plies. 



ANASTASIUS GRUN. 



125 



And pale with black and dripping hair, 
I saw the Captain's daughter's face — 

She looked at me with dumb despair — 
" Hold fast," said I, " in my embrace !" 

She clasped firmly hand in hand — 
Three days that pallid girl I bore — 

On the fourth day we touch' d the land — 
Her corpse was drifted on the shore. 

A billow threw her on the sand, 

And, through the palm-trees, merrily, 

Came down the daughters of the land, 
To hail their sister from the sea. 

Tahitian maids for burial dress'd 

The white corpse rescued from the wave, 

Then left the foreign maid to rest — 
A bread-tree rustles o 'er her grave. 

The Lena, lying on the shore, 

Had lost the figure from her prow — 

I took its place — my tale is o'er — 
I long for new sea-dangers now. 



THE INDIAN. 

I gaze upon the deep-blue water there — 
A mirror for my black and braided hair — 
To see if flames have singed the feathers red, 
Bound, like a coronet, about my head. 

THE MANDARIN. 

And in that deep, where rigging, sail and mast 

Are mirror'd well, an anxious look I cast — 

My tassel'd cap and robe of yellow too, 

Have 'scap'd from Canton's fire and kept their hue ! 

THE INDIAN. 

When last I left New York, in many a spire, 
Its warehouses were pouring smoke and fire : — 
The sparks were thickly flying through the night, 
The vessels floated on a sea of light ! 

THE MANDARIN. 

When last from Canton, I, in terror, came, 
Its stores and factories were all in flame : — 
Astonish'd at the conflagration's roar, 
A thousand junks were pushing from the shore ! 

THE INDIAN. 

The burning forest makes a splendid scene ! 
It scalps the mountains crown' d with leafy green ; 
It will not stay, but, with its scorching beams, 
Melts rocks to glass and dries up all the streams ! 

THE MANDARIN. 

By Confutzee ! it is a dazzling sight! 

The Feast of Lanterns in the sacred night — 

The city all becomes a sea of beams, 

And every street with constellations gleams ! 

THE INDIAN. 

Fiercer than forest-fire when winds are blowing, 
O'er New York'shighest roofs the flames were growing: 
Rafters and roofs were crackling all around, 
And lofty towers fell, thundering, on the ground. 

THE MANDARIN. 

No feast of lanterns ever shone so bright 
As Canton's stores were burning all that night. 
To Pekin when the dismal news they bore, 
The Emperor his yellow mantle tore ! 



THE INDIAN. 

The ashes on my feathery crown fell fast 
From New York's harbour as I sail'd, aghast! 

THE MANDARIN. 

The Watchman on the walls, that night of dread, 
Was strewing Canton's ashes on his head ! 

By the harbour, in the May-night, I wandered to and fro, 
Till the morning- wind arose to cool my forehead's feverish 

glow. 
In the vessels, mingled notes of foreign birds were ringing, 
In a garden, by the haven, the nightingale was singing. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

ANASTASIUS GRUN. 

Of all the recent poets who have meddled with 
political themes, our favourite is Count Auersperg, 
of Vienna, who has written several volumes of 
poetry under the assumed name of Anastasius 
Grim. His political poems are remarkable, as 
they come from Vienna, where the air seems un- 
favourable to all bold thoughts ; but we will leave 
these for the Austrians to read, and cull some 
specimens from his lighter and more pleasing 
productions. 

THE POETRY OF STEAM. 

I hear sad hymns and downcast faces see — 
Our prophet-bards have had a boding dream, 

A mournful vision of dear poetry 

For ever banished from the earth — by steam ! 

What ! had your crooked roads, then, such a grace, 
That long, straight lines must grieve a Poet's eye ? 

Is just five miles an hour the Poet's pace ? 
And must not Pegasus attempt to fly ? 

Out with your coach, as in a happier day, 

Harness again your gall'd and spavin'd team, 

(But keep within the old ruts all the way) 
And chase the goddess borne away by steam ! 

Or take a boat and row well (if you can) 

After a steamer on the swelling sea, 
And never murmur though the waterman 

Can tell you nothing of your poetry. 

Or man a ship and every random gust, 

Sent from the wind-god catch within your rag, 

As gladly as a beggar some stale crust 
Takes with a bow and drops into his bag. 

Or, if 'tis calm, 'twill quite poetic be 

There, as if ice-bound, on a summer's day ; — 

Perhaps a dolphin rising from the sea, 
Of poetry may something have to say ; 

While I, along the vine-clad, rocky Rhine, 
On a black swan, the steamer, proudly swim, 

And, lifting up a cup of golden wine, 

Sing loudly human art's triumphal hymn ; 

And gladly celebrate the master-hand, 

That seiz'd the fire-flame, like Prometheus old, 

And, through the black shaft 'mid the grassy land, 
Dragg'd up the iron from Earth's rocky hold ; 



126 ANASTASIUS GRUN. 


And gave command to both — " ye shall not rest 




Till striving man is from his bondage free ; 


THE DYING COMEDIAN. 


Go, fire, and bear man's burdens, east and west, 




And, wheels of iron, on his errands flee ! " 


The curtain rustles — up it flies — 




Forth comes the old comedian gray, 


See how they go, with thunder, through the land — 


With painted face and fading eyes — 


Beneath the steam-clouds heavy masses flee ; 


His motley dress with tinsel gay. 


So marches on an elephantine band, 




With towers and battlements, to victory. 


Old withered man, whose white hairs wave, 




With antics wild, I grieve to see 


See, from his seat beneath the shady tree, 


Thee leaping, springing near the grave 


The village patriarch from his sleep arise, 


To make for reckless idlers glee. 


And, throwing up his nightcap hastily, 




Share in his grandsons' rapture and surprise ! 


They laugh to see a hoary head — 




An old man, ready for his bier ! 


And, 'mid some fears, he hopes for better days, 


Must thou do this to earn thy bread ? 


For which, in youth, he ventur'd in the fight — 


Old, trembling man, what dost thou here ? 


" May this new power," the village-patriarch prays, 




" Establish Fatherland and freedom's right ! " 


An old man's brain is weak and faint, 




Forgetting even his children's faces : — 




Thine has to learn, with sad constraint, 


THE TEA-PLANT. 


New random jests, and strange grimaces ! 


The Apalachian mountains wavy height 


An old man's arms are tired and faint, 


Is rosy-glowing in the evening-light ; 


And only serve his hands to raise 


The Planter's bell the negroes homeward calls, 


To bless his children, like a saint, 


And stillness on the western forests falls. 


Or fold them softly when he prays : — 


Beneath a sycamore's wide-spreading shade, 


But thine must swing and beat the air 


Beside a table, of fine cedar made, 


To give a force to some loose joke ; 


The Planter sits, and sips the fragrance hot 


Thus toils a man with hoary hair, 


Of China's plant, poured from a silver pot. 


To raise a laugh for idle folk ! 


His fields of riches lie before him spread, 


The pains of age may on thee steal, 


And in the midst his mansion rears its head ; 


And rheumatism gnaw the bone,— 


Rustles his maize, and bloom his cotton-trees, 


What matters it whate'er you feel ? — 


And sugar-canes are waving in the breeze. 


Your limbs, old man, are not your own ! 


And, with a musing aspect, solemnly, 


The old man sits awhile to rest, 


He lifteth to his lips the steaming tea : 


And hangs his arms down wearily — 


The inspiration of the fragrant cup 


" A lazy clown ! is that a jest ? " 


Spreads o'er his features as he drinks it up. 


Murmurs the gazing company. 


" Hail, China !" — thus he speaks — " far o'er the sea 


With failing breath and trembling tone, 


I waft my thanks into the land of tea ! 


He starts his sermon learned by heart — 


All hail the man who planted first the tree 


" There 's not a word of wit — not one ! 


Which gave the nectar of our liberty ! 


How lazily he plays his part !" 


" The Chinese man of physic, when he found 


He must go through — he stammers on — 


This costly plant neglected on the ground, 


With fluttering lips — it will not go — 


How little could he guess, with all his pains, 


He drops his head — his breath is gone — 


This plant would teach us how to break our chains ! 


Alas ! to spend one's last breath so! 


" How little did thy harbour, Boston, dream 


Tinkles the bell ! the curtain falls ! 


That freedom's rights should from her bosom teem ! 


(Is that the jester's funeral bell ?) 


That from her waters, glorious, should arise 


'Mid whistles shrill and angry calls — 


The tree of liberty in western skies ! 


(Is that the old man's funeral yell ?) 


" children, cherish well this liberty 


The old man leans back in his chair, 


Which China sent us in a chest of tea ! 


His brow and hands are deadly pale, 


How little man, with all his wisdom, knows 


But on his cheeks the ruddy smear 


What fruit will spring up from the seed he sows ! " 


Of life and frolic tells a tale. 


So spoke the man, and smoothly stroked his beard — 


His brethren in the comic art 


Sweet thoughts of liberty the Planter cheered ; 


Around him stand and drolly say — 


But, from the sugar-canes, behind him spread, 


" He died a hero in his part 


Peep'd out a black and woolly Negro's head ! 


Upon our battle-field to-day ! " 



ANASTASIUS GRUN. 127 


A comic damsel, gay and light, 

Comes up and throws, to close the scene, 
Upon his hair of silvery white 

A laurel crown of paper green. — 

The next day two comedians hore 
The jester to his place of sleep, 

And, when the grave was covered o'er, 
None stood to laugh — and none to weep ! 

THE UNKNOWN. 


THE DESERTER. 

In the guard-house, pinion'd, sits 

The mountain-boy, once glad and free, 

To-morrow muskets seal his doom, 
For thrice he ran for liberty. 

Now, to solace thoughts of death, 

They bring him wine and dainty cheer ; — 
More welcome, to his guarded room 

Comes his mother old and dear. 


Through the gateway of the town, 
Went a heggar old and gray ; 

And none was there to say farewell, 
And none to lead him on his way. 


" Mother, see, these foolish men 

Would have me break the solemn vow 

I gave my lovely mountain-girl, 
Kept sacred as my life till now ! 


So the gray cloud in the sky, 
Tells not of its teeming rain ; 

So the rock that hides the ore, 
Boasts not of its golden vein. 


" They tell me that my life is due 
To such a noble king as mine — 

But good kings, surely, don't want blood, 
Aiid, mother, sure, my life is thine. 


And the cold and withered tree, 
In its winter dress of snow, 

Tells no tale of summer leaves 
And fruit of ruddy-golden glow. 


" Who will guard your house and field, 
And these dear locks of silver-gray, 

And Nanny's hair, of golden brown, 
When I am buried in the clay ? 


None that saw him pass could dream 
Yonder heggar, old and gray, 

Once had worn a golden crown, 
And shone in purple's rich array. 


" What foolery ! there they lift a pole, 
And on its top a painted rag, 

With some wild, savage beast upon it — 
And I must march beneath their flag ! 


Traitors took away his crown, 
His rohe of purple, and his land, 

And, instead of sceptre, placed 
A pilgrim's staff within his hand. 


" Vultures, eagles, carrion-crows, 

I hated every ravenous bird, 
And shot them, when they ventured near, 

When watching by our mountain-herd. 


Thus he wanders, many years, 

Unsaluted, all unknown, 
Bowing down his royal head, 

Through the countries not his own. 


" And then across an empty tub 
They stretch a noisy ass's skin — 

Instead of larks and mountain-birds, 
My ear is stunn'd with such a din ! 


Down he lays his weary head 
'Neath a shady, hlooming tree, 

And the branches o'er him spread 
Sing his funeral melody. 


" I 'd rather hear the merry fiddle 
Play'd by our good old parish-clerk, 

At eve, when on the mountain-grass 

Our maids and shepherds danced till dark. 


And the passers by the place, 
Softly say, with sudden fear — 

" Who is this white-headed man, 
Fall'n asleep for ever here ? " 


" And then they dress me like a fool, 
With buckled belt, and shoulder-knot, 

A knapsack like a shoulder-hump, 
And, for a hat, this great black pot ! 


But nature, with her clear blue eye, 
Seems to know the sleeper there, 

And o'er him spreads a canopy 
Of royal, funeral splendour fair ; 


" And I must stand there all night waking, 
Forsooth, because my lord is sleeping ! 

Why, how much sounder sleeps the king, 
I'd like to know, for all my keeping? 


Scatters, from the waving tree, 
A crown of blossoms on his head, 

And gilds with light his beggar's staff, 
Like a sceptre golden-red. 


" 'Twould wiser be to trust himself, 
As I must do, to heaven above, 

And let me go to stand on guard 
Before the cottage of my love ! 


Dark green boughs, like funeral plumes, 
Wave above the old King's head, 

And, like a royal, purple robe, 

The evening-light is o'er him spread. 


" I loathe to die by musket-balls — 

To-morrow, when my chains are broke, 

Think, mother, that, among the hills, 
I fell beneath a thunder-stroke ! " 



128 



ANASTASIUS GRUN. 



The morning came — the mountain-girl 
Went to the quiet pasture-ground, 

And sat heneath a hloomy tree, 
With all her cattle grazing round. 

Hark ! a sudden, angry clang 
Shakes the tree ahove her head, 

And, startled from its morning-dream, 
Its hlossoms are around her shed. 

And drops .of shining dew, like tears, 
Are falling fast the maid around, 

As, in the vale, her mountain-boy 
Falls, with his face upon the ground. 

THE OLD SOLDIER. 

He sits, a king amid the crowd ; — 

— The village-children round him throng- 
He sings, like raven hoarse and loud, 

A lusty battle-song ; 

While the merry, rosy lass 

Often comes to fill his glass. 

One boy has climbed upon his breast, 

Plays with his beard, and strokes his face, 
And two, of stick and sword possess'd, 

Stand sentinels of the place ; 

While the master of the school 

Sits, forgetting rod and rule. 

The Pensioner turns up his sleeve 
To show the badges of his glory — 

" Come look at this and then believe 
This arm can tell a story." 
The children say with fear — 
" Who made these blue lines here ? " 

" I can explain them — ah, too well ! 

When back this sleeve is furl'd — 
Now look at them — these pictures tell 

The history of the world. 

Are not the figures smart ? 

See, first, this little heart : — 

" Beside the river Loire I knew, 

In life's best days, a lovely maid — 
This little heart of azure blue 

I mark'd here, ne'er to fade : 

You see, beside the same, 

The letters of her name. 

" With blood-red caps, a furious band 

Of men along our valley came, 
And shouted " freedom" through the land — 

I hardly knew the name ; 

But I mark'd, as for a charm, 

The cap upon my arm. 

" I joined the band and pour'd out blood 

Like other men — I knew not why — 
At last a man before us stood 

With a gray, eagle's eye : 

An eagle in his hand 

Was the sign of his command. 

" He bade us follow — we obeyed — 

And far and wide that eagle flew — 
Around the pyramids it played, 

And over Moscow too ; 

O'er the Vatican at Rome 

And old Notre Dame at home 



" O'er many a brave and bloody fight 

That eagle-standard was unfurl' d : 
At last against it came the might 

Of half the Christian world : 

See here the eagle blue 

That fell at Waterloo ! 

" ' For peace ! for peace ! for right divine ! 

Was now the fashionable call ; 
A lily was the sacred sign — 

This scar was from a cannon-ball ; 

Beside it, blue and clear, 

You see the lily here. 

" This arm contains a history — 

I wish the king could have a look ! 
I '11 leave it for him when I die — 

'Twill be a useful book ! 

Let him read its tale of glory 

And profit by the story !" 



THE PENITENT. 

There stands a lonely cottage on the shore, 
Close by the sea which beats upon its sides ; 

Its frail walls tremble when the billows roar 
As the heart trembles that within it hides. 

Its lowly portal seems disposed to show 

That none may enter save the meek and low, 

The lofty head that will not humbly bow, 
May have the chaplet carried from its brow. 

The cottage seems a temple shut to sin, 

See on its walls the morning radiance bright 

Pours golden rays and hallows it within, 
As if it were a temple of the light. 

List ! the small window on its hinges creeks, 
And see, the Priestess of the place looks out — 

Upon her breast flowers, faded like her cheeks, 
And others twined her flowing hair about. 

Her clouded eyes show but a feeble gleam, 
Like dying tapers that have burn'd all night, 

And from their sockets raise a sickly beam 
Amid the opening morning's golden light. 

Upon the flowers that 'neath her window stand 
She pours fresh water from her snow-white hand 

Though from her heart all bloom has died away, 
She would not see her window-flowers decay ! 

Then visits she her garden's flowery bed 

Wreaths for the day of freshest flowers to bind, 

One chaplet for the Virgin Mary's head, 

The other round her own loose ringlets twined. 

And now she tinges red her pallid face, 

And rosy blushes on her cheeks are spread, 

(For how should pride be in this lonely place ?) 
For shame that they should be so pale and dead- 

And now she bends her head, and rosy crown, 
Between her snow-white hands her face to hide, 

Like the rose, purple-bosomed, bending down, 
Between the neighbour lilies at its side. 



ANASTASIUS GRUN. 



129 



Then o'er the sea she turns her gazing sight, 
And tracks the morning-star's departing ray, 

Where vanishes the ship's sail snowy-white, 
Like innocence so white — so far away ! 

Shine, morning-glow, around this lonely place, 
And cast a glorious lustre on her face : — 
See, 'mid her beds of flowers she stands in light, 
Like one of heaven's own angels, pure and bright. 

Yet, what is she ? a beauteous flower decayed, 
Fall'n from the rose of Paradise to fade, — 
The broken ruin of a holy place, 
A woman fall'n — an angel in disgrace ! 

Yet I could kneel, as at a shrine, to pray, 

Could weep for her and pray on bended knee ;- 

O fair Rose, lost and trampled in the clay, 
How a whole heaven of joy is lost with thee ! 



THE CHURCHYARD AMID THE MOUNTAINS. 

Calm resting-place amid the mountains old ! 

Beside the dark fir-forest swell these graves 
So peacefully ! as if death's ocean roll'd 

Upon these heights only its still, green waves. 

To guard the sleepers in their quiet dwelling, 
No dismal wall is rais'd these hillocks round, 

Like gentle billows 'mid the pasture swelling, 
They lose themselves upon the grassy ground. 

No sculptured stones are raised these hillocks o'er, 
To hold with death a sad, unequal strife, 

Urns, pyramids, like fragments on a shore, 
To tell the wreck and misery of life ! 

The full moon through the dark firs pours her rays, 

And soothes the spirit in a reverie, 
While the soft wind the forest-branches sways, 

Of some still voyage along a moonlit sea. 



leveller Death ! making of all one dust, 

Thy might, unquestioned, is acknowledged here : 
Not one inscription, not one sculptured bust, 
Proclaims distinction 'mid the sleepers near. 

Yet, in a dream, I guess who sleeps below — 
Here sleeps a herdsman — on the pasture green 

The mountain-herd is grazing, and I know 

Where there are herds a herdsman must have been. 

Here sleeps a hunter whom the mountains knew — 
The timid roe comes through the moonlit night 

Upon the hunter's grave to lick the dew — 

Mild vengeance for his arm's once-dreaded might ! 

Here lies a reaper by the pasture-land — 

I know it by the flowers that flourish here — 

1 see him, in my dream, with sun-burnt hand, 

Binding a wreath his harvest-home to cheer. 

But which must be the consecrated mound 

That tells of love, 'mid these green hillocks here ? 

Where shall the grave, with certainty, be found 
Where blighted love may shed a friendly tear ? 



O love ! and wouldst thou hallow but one grave, 
When all this quiet ground belongs to thee ? 

Or shed thy tears upon a single wave, 

When thine is all death's ever-swelling sea ? 



THE MUSE CALLED TO JUDGMENT. 

Hither, my Muse ! to this wild rocky vale, 
'Mid the old gloomy forest follow me, 

Beneath yon ancient oak-tree hear my tale — 
Come — I would speak an earnest word to thee. 

Come solemnly, as to a judgment-seat : 

Forget the idle, transitory praise, 
Which friends too mild, or flatterers soft and sweet, 

Have pour'd, too plentifully, on thy lays. 

Come where no human foot has ever been : 

Hark, with sweet voices how these shades resound ! 

A thousand birds are singing in the green ; 

But hush ! they hear our steps on mossy ground. 

These forest-birds sing not for human ears ; 

None mocks another ; with sweet, natural airs, 
Each the loved neighbourhood around him cheers : — 

Muse ! are your songs as good and true as theirs ? 

Here an old oak lies rotting on the ground : 

Five hundred springs once covered it with leaves ; 

Its brother-trees stand flourishing around, 

Lusty and green ; none for the fallen grieves ! 

But flowers bloom round the spot, and, in the night, 
Starless and moonless, through the forest-gloom, 

From the old trunk gleams out phosphoric light, 
Like a soft halo shining o'er a tomb. 

Thus, when I rest within the last, cold bed, 

And over me funereal branches wave, 
Will beams of gentle radiance then be shed, 

Muse ! from thy songs around the poet's grave ? 



Come further — see ! the fearless streamlet flows 
O'er the steep rock and falls in a cascade ; 

Upon the billow whirl'd, a lovely rose 

Tells of the gardens where that rivulet played : 

Fearless, it pours its broken waters down, 
And brings a beauty to the barren place, 

While all around the rocky barriers frown, 
The stars of heaven are mirror'd on its face. 

Hast thou, O Muse, thus, like a streamlet clear, 
Flow'd through the world, upon thy billows bright 

Bearing the roses of a happier sphere, 

And faithfully reflecting heaven's pure light ? 

If not, this is no place for thee — go wait , 
Beside the margin of this solemn wood, 

As once offenders at the churchyard-gate, 
In penitential clothing meekly stood. 



THE SHELL AND THE KERNEL, 

A little tavern low and mean — 

A faded wreath its sign ! — 
Within the rosy, golden sheen 

Of cool and sparkling wine ! 

K 



130 LEOPOLD 


SCHEFER. 


With broken pots the window spread, 


As long as blooms the spring 


Shows roses in their pride — 


And while the roses blow, 


See, in the tap, an old man's head, 


While smiles can dimple cheeks, 


With merry thoughts inside. 


And eyes with joy o'erflow : 


A little church of old, gray stones, 


And while the cypress dark, 


Half-sunken in decay — 


O'er the grave its head can shake, 


Within it hymns and organ-tones, 


And while an eye can weep, 


And people there to pray ! 


And while a heart can break : 


The coachman Wind, the horses lame, 


So long on earth shall live 


The carriage sunk in sand — 


The goddess Poesy, 


Within it rides a lovely dame, 


And make of human life, 


The fairest in the land ! 


An endless melody. 


A cold and darksome rocky vale, 


And singing, all alone, 


With pleasant water springing ; 


The last of living men, 


A ruin'd castle, gray and pale, 


Upon Earth's garden green, 


With ivy round it clinging. 


Shall be a poet then. 


Or look at me, a wanderer lone, 


God holds his fair creation 


With sunburnt face and hand, 


In his hand, a blooming rose, 


And this gray frock about me thrown, 


He smiles on it with pleasure, 


Bestrewn with dust and sand : 


And in his smile it glows. 


Yet look within and there the light 


But when the giant-flower 


Of spring-time you may find ; 


For ever dies away, 


Green fields and skies all blue and bright, 


And earth and sun, its blossoms, 


I carry in my mind ! 


Like blooms of spring, decay ; 


The kernel is not like the shell. — 


Then ask the poet — then — 


Would you this song unravel, 


If you live to see the day — 


And understand my meaning well ? 


" When will be sung and ended 


Crack nuts, or go and travel I 


The old, eternal lay ? " 


THE LAST POET. 


-+- 


" When will be poets weary, 


CHAPTER XIV. 


And throw their harps away? 




When will be sung and ended 


DIDACTIC POETRY LEOPOLD SCHEFER. 


The old, eternal lay ? 


It will be observed that there is little of a 


" Wben will your horn of plenty 
At last exhausted lie ? 


philosophical or didactic character in the fore- 
going extracts from German poetry. Mr. Howitt 


When every flower is gather' d, 
And every fountain dry ? " 


remarks that German readers have so much meta- 
physical speculation in their prose works that they 


cannot bear its appearance in the shape of poetry. 


As long as the sun's chariot 


This is not exactly correct, as the didactic poems 


Rolls in the heavenly blue, 


of Sallet, Duller, Schefer, and others, may prove. 


As long as human faces 

Are gladdened with the view : 


Leopold Schefer, the best writer of this school, 


has written a " Breviary for Laymen," containing 




a series of moral lessons in verse. Such pro- 


Long as the sky's loud thunder 


ductions cannot claim any high rank as poetry, 


Is echoed from the hill, 


though Schefer, in his similes and illustrations, 


And, touched with dread and wonder, 


shows a truly poetical mind. 


A human heart can thrill : 


The same seriousness of moral purport which 




pervades the " Breviary for Laics," belongs also 


And while, through melting tempest, 


to the " Vigils " of Leopold Schefer. Some of 


The rainbow spans the air, 


the doctrines of these Vigils remind us of the 


And gladden'd human bosoms 


Hindoo Bhagavad-Gita, while their ethical pur- 


Can hail the token fair : 


port accords, in many respects, with the medita- 


And long as night the ether 


tions of Marcus Antoninus. 


With stars and planets sows, 
And man can read the meaning 
That in golden letters glows : 

| 


the blessed. 


Blessed are they who see and yet believe not ! 


Yea, blest are they who look on graves, and still 


As long as shines the moon 


Believe none dead ; who see proud tyrants ruling, 


Upon our nightly rest, 


And yet believe not in the strength of Evil ; 


And the forest waves its branches 


Who see vast temples standing, yet believe not 


Above the weary breast : 


That they are shrines of many gods ; who see 



LEOPOLD SCHEFER. 



131 



Priests, yet believe them not wiser than men. 
And blest are they who see the evil-doer 
In wealth and honour, yet will not believe 
That he is otherwise than poor and wretched ! 
Blessed are they who see the wandering poor, 
And yet believe not that their God forsakes them; 
Who see the blind worm creeping, yet believe not 
That even that is left without a path ; 
Who see the sun down-going and up-rising, 
And yet believe not in his changefulness ; 
Who see the flowers up-springing from the ground, 
And yet believe not they were dead before ; 
Who see the countless children of mankind, 
Believing only in the power of God. 
Blessed are they who see and yet believe not ; 
For they who as they see believe are wretched. 

SIGNS AND SUBSTANCES. 

" You tell us nought of God, nor of the Sun, 

Nor of the life of men all o'er the world." 

Nought? nought? I tell you all things of them all. 

Even when I talk but of a violet, 

A leaf, or mark a single footstep well, 

Say I not clearly something of the earth ? 

Can I say rain, and not point out the clouds ? 

Or speak of clouds, and not point out the heavens ? 

As in the child you see the mother too, 

And in a single word the spirit feel 

Who speaks and lives and is in it so near you ? 

And when I point you to the glowing rose, 

The snowy lily, or the mountain blue, 

Or silver-shining stream, then show I not 

The sun, and in those colours speak of light ? 

And when I mark a child, a beam of light, 

Or moonlight rainbow gleaming on the earth, 

Tell I not then the glory of the sun ? 

And cannot he who sees you see your father ? 

THANKSGIVING FOR SORROWS. 

To care for others, that they may not suffer 
What we have suffer' d, is divine well-doing, 
The noblest vote of thanks for all our sorrows ! 
And only thus the good man giveth thanks 
To God, and also to humanity 
Which hourly is in need of aid and guidance. 
And who has not known misery ? dear soul ! 
Who would not thank God for his sorrows all, 
When, in their working, they become so sweet ! 
Good for ourselves and for humanity ! 
'Tis thus the roots of the aloe-tree are bitter, 
But cast upon the glowing coals, how sweet, 
How lasting and diffusive is their fragrance ! 
Yea, I have seen a lame and halting child 
Prop up most tenderly a broken plant ; 
And a poor mother, whose own child was burnt, 
Snatch from the flame the children of another. 
So, generous man, return thou constant thanks 
For all thy griefs to God and to mankind, 
And ending grief will make unending joy ! 
Or, if it end not, it will be pure blessing 
While in the trying furnace, thou dost good. 
And if from woe released, and happy, spread, 
Thy happiness all round thee. So doth God. 
Suffering or happy, man ; be always thankful. 

PLAIN ANSWER. 

" This dull, dark strife with unillumined souls, 
Ending not with the day, but every morning 
Afresh returning for another day — 



Such warfare makes at last the noblest mind, 

Heavy and hopeless — earnestly I wish 

'Twere done, that I might rest, and silent be !" 

So speak you. But distinguish well the truth. 

The conflict is not gloomy. Grieved you see 

Around you but a dull distracted house, 

The old false world with evil deeds, wrong words, 

Heavily pressing on all noble minds. 

Unreasonable minds are always gloomy : 

The conflict is right clear, in daylight waged, 

With brightness ever pressing on the gloom ! 

Nor is your conflict with irrationals : 

(For all would wiser be, and every one 

Has faculties for better — wiser — growing.) 

See, then, your only conflict is with men, 

And your sole strife is to defend and teach 

The unillumined, who without such care, 

Must perish. Every unenlightened man 

Commends himself to you, ev'n as your child. 

How easily for him and for yourself 

Life's burden may be lightened, by your words 

Opening the spring of truth in his own breast, 

And cleansing out the roots of all his errors, 

Destroying, ev'n with a single word, 

A coming harvest of injurious weeds! 

If, then, the Better never must grow weary, 

But always think of better and fulfil it, 

How shall the wiser weary of his task 

To show the right, and for the truth contend ? 

How shall the heart of the good man grow weary, 

Though hand and tongue are worn out in his work? 

And how can gentleness be ever weary ? 

(For all true love is gentle, falling on 

Men's souls as gentle rains upon the earth.) 

How can you e'er grow weary of the truth ? 

Weary of gentleness and genuine love ? 

Be well and happy therefore in the strife ! 

And keep love in your heart all life's day long, 

Till like the eternal stars its beams are spread. 

THE FOUNTAIN. 

" What one can never do for me again, 
That I '11 not do for him. To none I owe 
What he ne'er did for me, and ne'er can do." 
And thus will you live justly, well and calmly ? 
No ; not even so ; say nought of useful, noble, 
Divine and human life (the two are one). 
Then first of all, grant not your child a grave ; 
For sure your child can never bury you ! 
Follow no friend to his last resting-place ; 
For he can never rise to follow you ! 
Give no poor wanderer a crust of bread, 
Lest he should never meet you and return it ! 
Clothe not the poor till he can so clothe you ! 
And bind not up your house-dog's broken limb ; 
He '11 ne'er return that self-same benefit — 
The hound can only bark and keep your door. 
The beggar only prays, " Reward you God ! " 
But I say : Whatsoever thing you do 
None other can do that for you again. 
Either that same thing you may never need, 
Or if you need it, it may not be found. 
Humanity will always be around you ; 
Hear then my counsel, hear the word divine — 
To every man give that which most he needs, 
Do that which he can never do for you ! 
Thus live you like the spring that gives you water, 
And like the grape that sheds for you its blood, 
And like the rose that perfume sheds for you, 
And like the bread that satisfies your need, 

K 2 



132 



LEOPOLD SCHEFER. 



And like the clouds that pour their rains for you, 
And like the sun that shines so gladly for you, 
And like the earth that bears you on her bosom, 
And like the dead who left their care for you ! 
You cannot teach the dead, nor bless the heavens. 
Nor bear the earth, nor give the sun more glory, 
Nor clouds more rain ; you cannot nourish bread, 
Nor give the rose its fragrance, nor the vine 
Its sap, nor can you feed the water-springs. 
And now, ivhat were you if none did for you 
What you ne'er did and ne'er can do for him ? 
For what can you return to God for all ? 
Your very spirit means His spirit — given — 
Then like that spirit, freely, purely, truly, 
Divinely, do for every one your best. 
Thus only can you live in righteousness, 
In heavenly peace, joyful and free from care ; 
Thus will you live even as His spirit lives, 
Thus will you in his very kingdom dwell. 
Do all for men that they do not for you ! 

These are very pure and good lessons, and 
simply and clearly inculcated. 

There is wisdom drawn from the example of a 
child in our next extract. As the child uncon- 
sciously lives in the enjoyment of the whole truth, 
so the man is called to bring his conscience and 
his science to the same simplicity and perfection. 

children's laughter. 

How soon and easily a little child 
Acquainted grows with father, mother, sister, 
With day and night, with sunshine and with moon- 
light, 
With spring and harvest, and with birth and death ! 
" Thus is it in my father's house," thinks he, 
And never wonders at the already done, 
But only at the new that comes to pass — 
Easier to him seems life than A. B. C. 
So loillingly he sees funereal trains, 
Admires the garland laid upon the coffin, 
Beholds the narrow, still, last house of man, 
Looks in the grave and hears, without a fear, 
The dust fall down upon the coffin-lid. 
With joy he stands beside his new-born sister, 
Admires the snowy dress, her first array, 
And sees her placed upon her mother's breast. 
It grieves him not Avhen in pale harvest-time, 
The meadows cease to put forth gentle flowers; 
He gladdens when the flowers return again, 
And learns the name of the all-beauteous season, 
The name of Spring — he learns the name of day, 
When the bright sun is up, and names the night, 
When hosts of stars array themselves in heaven, 
While softly at his mother's side he sleeps, 
And early in the morn awakens her, — 
Thus fives the child unbounded and immortal, 
Lives in the work and blessing of the Power 
From whom proceed home, father, mother, sister, 
Flowers, fruits, and sun and moon, and every hair 
On his own head — the child believes in all. 
Thus let the man this holy bond of union 
Behold in constant gladsomeness of heart, 
In which the tenderest blossoms of the spring, 
The earth with men full-crowded, and the sun 
That sheds on all his glory, five together. 
The least lives with the greatest in this bond : 
The springing grass points to the highest heavens ! 
The tiniest sand-grain to Eternity ! 



The dew-drops tell us of serenest love, 

The shade a flower casts tells of holy light, 

A child's glad laughter tells heaven's happiness, 

And a poor beggar with her tatter' d child 

May point the mind to God for rest and quiet. 

To learn of life, however humble, true, 

The cheerful and divine interpretation, 

Perform the little as you would the great, 

The transitory as the ever-during, 

And in the mind of God your life-day spend. 

Here an universal but undeveloped and un- 
realised thought is exhibited in a very beautiful 
style : — 

THE SICK CHILD. 

Your child was seized with sickness in the night, 

And now all possible expedients, 

All careful thoughts arise within your breast ; 

Yet bow you not before an idol's shrine, 

Nor promise you an offering to the Priest : 

You seek but insight, counsel, strength, and quiet. 

Nor bend you down 'neath dread necessity, 

Nor of predestination vainly dream. 

How find you now security and rest? 

Who helps you now? How shall your child recover? 

Be calm, dear soul, remember — God is here ! 

In every moment, and in every man, 

In every power, in every atom yonder, — 

And " God is here " — whatmean the words, dear soul? 

But constant power is here, all might and love ! 

And wisdom and all-penetrating skill, 

The tenderest, surest, and most perfect art ! 

As He the all-perfect Builder is of all 

These blossoms and these tenderest seeds of flowers, 

And yon bright glories of the firmament, 

So is He their indwelling healer too. 

Do what you can — let all do what they can 

Upon this earth, in yonder starry sphere, 

Wound or destroy blooms, moving things and men 

Yea, if you can, put out the light of suns — 

Still God is there — immediately there — 

Asserts himself in every drop of blood ; 

Tliere as the sap in the rose's root he moves ; 

Tliere in the warmth-and-life-diffusing fire. 

The life-power, and the healing-power of all ; 

All that he owns he constantly is healing, 

Quietly, gently, softly, but most surely ; — 

He helps the loveliest herb with wounded stalk 

To rise again — see ! from the heavens fly down 

All gentle powers to cure the blinded lamb ! 

Deep in the treasure-house of wealthy Nature 

A ready secret instinct wakes and moves 

To clothe the naked sparrow in the nest, 

Or trim the plumage of an aged raven ; — 

Yea, in the slow-decaying of a rose 

God works, as well as in the unfolding bud ; 

He works with gentleness unspeakable 

In death itself a thousand times more careful 

Than ev'n the mother by her sick child watching. 

Now ! — God is here — in this afflicted child, 

In every vein throughout his heavenly form. 

'Tis He who wakes beside him in the mother ; 

'Tis He that gives good counsel by the father; 

In the physician's hand He brings the help ; 

Through all the means He fives — through all the buds, 

And all the roots of the medicinal herb — 

Lives in this morning light — this morning breath, 

Lives in the lark that sings his song up yonder, 



CONCLUSION. 



133 



To cheer the child who hears and faintly smiles ; 

Lives in the sun that yonder shines, and here 

Lives in this spring-green, and yon heavenly hlue 

Lives everywhere with all might, perfect love. 

I do "believe in the all-present God — 

The ever-living — therefore speak I not 

Of his £>re-destination, nor/o?*e-seeing, 

But of his heing and his seeing now ! 

With him no yesterday — eternal now ! 

In no cold fate believe I, but in Life, 

The glowing love of the all-present God. 



Therefore, whatever happen to your child, 
Whether to-morrow 'mid the flowers he plays, 
Or in a few days we must bear this form, 
Decked with fresh violets, to the cold grave, 
There to repose beside his ancestors — 
This wonder of all wonders we '11 remember — 
All things the living, loving God can do. 
Thus, come what will, we honour still our Father 
And this child's Father — the all-present God. 

Next morning 'mid the flowers the child was playing. 



CONCLUSION. 



The preceding pages have given as fair a view 
of that department of literature to which they are 
devoted as the limits of this work would allow. 
It will be observed that of poetry of dramatic or 
historical interest, little can be found in our selec- 
tions. As the poetry of an individual life should, 
at least, be equal in interest to the real events of 
that life, so the poetry of a country should be a 
worthy companion to its history. But German 
poetry reveals to us but faint traces of that land 
whose ancient people overthrew the Roman Empire 
— the land of the Carlovingians — the theatre where 
the middle ages displayed their wonders and 
terrors, castles, cathedrals, steel-clad barons, 
hooded monks, and incongruously pious crusaders ; 
where the dreaded Vehmgericht was founded ; 
where Jews were persecuted with sword and fire, 
and troops of wild fanatics, such as the Brothers 
of the Scourge, roamed about : the land of Charles 
V. ; the land of Luther — what does German poetry 
tell of its history ? Here, it must be allowed, is a 
great defect, and those who write for the present 
may learn something from the errors of the past. 
We want a more vivid and particularising narra- 
tive of fife in olden times than the historian has 
given us : this want the poet should have supplied. 
Posterity will, perhaps, feel the same want relative 
to our own times ; for where are the standard and 
classical works which give a faithful portraiture of 
the fife of the people % 

In the present day those who aspire to the 
Poet's name are hesitating as to the style they 
must employ to win public attention. The young 
poet must go upon a journey of discovery, visiting 
various regions in the poetical world, and bringing 
fruits from several climes, hoping that, in some 
instance, he may please the general taste, and 
believing that there is still, among things possible, 
a poetry which will win the people. The age is 
not averse from all poetry : though busy with 
many knotty questions, it would listen to the true 
poetry for the present ; but who can tell where 
that is to be found ? The hoard of poetical sen- 
timents and imagery seems almost exhausted, and 
a young poet can hardly select a theme that will 
not suggest injurious comparisons. 

EDMUND AND URSULA. 

This is the quiet dell beside the convent. 
These birch-trees always waving in the wind, 



This streamlet ever rippling from its source, 
The bees, industrious as their ancestors, 
Culling the essences of transient flowers, 
That winter may have sweets when all the bloom 
Of spring and summer-life has fled away ; — 
All these reprove the fruitless life of yore 
Led by the monks in yon secluded walls. 

Studious serenity and midnight prayer, 

Self-watching till the master-mind becomes 

Like a stern alchemist, with torturing fire 

Purging the soul from all terrene alloy ; — 

These elements belong to human life, 

As winter holds a place in every year : — 

But then there comes a time for summer-fruit — 

There is a time for joy in human life — 

Love, with its sorrows and their recompense ; 

Activity of disappointment born, 

And ever o'er its failures rising higher ; 

The consecration of earth's common tasks 

For exercise of virtues sprung from heaven ; 

The recognition of divinest truths, 

In simple, lowly forms of human life ; — 

These elements are necessary too. 

False ways beget false thoughts. When men are busy. 

Each in his way, fulfilling well his work, 

Their minds repose in truth : approving Heaven 

Gives them its peace while they perform its will : 

But times of idleness and dreamery 

Give birth to superstitions manifold, 

As dreams rise up when men lay down their heads. 

I tell the story of a Monk. His father 

Was weak and superstitious — one who would not 

Move out of doors upon unlucky days. 

In yonder convent lived a gloomy monk, 

A most heretical dreamer, and as dull 

In Bible-lore as in the Hebrew tongue : 

Small Latin and no Greek had he : mere words 

Of holy writ he had by rote and quoted, 

At will, as magic jargon for all uses — 

Their spirit and their meaning were for him 

A mystery, buried far beneath his reach 

As the divining-cup of Persia's king, 

Hid in the caverns of Persepolis. 

And Nature could not teach him : in her smiles 
He saw no goodness : lessons hung on trees, 
Breathed up from flowers, or sung by cheerful streams 
And merry birds, to him were unknown tongues : 



134 



CONCLUSION. 



He sat, a dunce, in Nature's library, 
Untaught, as if her pages were all blank. 

But this perverse old dreamer had been taught 
By some enthusiast, astrology, 
And, with his crooked lines and horoscopes, 
Thought to explore the secret pulse of heaven, 
And the accordant pulse of human hearts. 
Edmund was born one drear December's eve, 
While in the father's house sat the dark Monk 
Discoursing of the planetary signs 
And heathenish old fancies of the moon, 
To which the father most devoutly listened. 
Instead of cheerful faith and smiling hope, 
Clasping the boy as a fresh gift from heaven, 
A crowd of dismal fancies gather'd round 
The newly-born, and anxiously the sire 
Demanded starry signs of future life. 

Then the dark Monk retired into his room, 
Looked out upon the sky, and with his pen 
Drew out a map of strange absurdities, 
Answering to nothing real in heaven or earth. 
Said he, "About his nineteenth year, this boy 
Will meet great peril, while he dreams of bliss — 
His only safety will be in a cell. ,f 

That \)ld Monk died — darkly as he had lived : 

But the bad fruit of superstitious thought 

Remained behind him. Edmund grew apace, 

A gentle, kind, and meditative boy : 

All things he loved, and never knew a fear 

Until his father taught him, telling tales 

Of charms, dark spells, enchantments wonderful ; 

Till the sweet scenery which God had made 

To dwell in the boy's heart was darkened o'er 

By shadows cast from the invisible. 

But Edmund found an angel to dispel 
The cloud his evil genius cast about him. 
Down in the valley stood an ancient house 
Surrounded with a garden, and a brook 
Flowed cheerfully beside the birch-trees there. 
And thither Edmund went to learn the names 
Of flowers and herbs and trees, till he forgot 
All dismal dreams in that sweet, shelter'd nook. 
For there lived Ursula, an only child, 
And nurtured in the cheering light of truth, 
Taught to converse with Nature, and to find 
In fair and lowly forms pure wisdom stored. 
Holier her meditations 'mid her flowers 
Than the ascetic's thoughts among the tombs ! 
And sweeter was the strain of piety 
With which she waited on a palsied aunt 
Through all the tedious hours of slow decline, 
Without a murmur serving night and day, 
Than all devices of austerity 
In yonder convent practised, without love. 

Ursula talked of flowers, and Edmund learned 
Their names, and learned to talk of gentle thoughts 
Akin to lovely flowers, and Ursula 
Was pleased to hear her own thoughts told so well. 
And Edmund often came (he knew not why), 
And stayed (he knew not why he stayed so long), 
And Ursula, when Edmund came not down 
The valley, at the wonted hour of eve, 
Knew not why o'er the garden lay a cloud. 
One evening they were sitting in the garden, 
And looking toward the Convent : o'er the roof 
Came out a few pale stars, and Edmund said ; 



" I never love to see the stars shine out : 
They do not seem to look upon me kindly." 
But Ursula in wonder gazed, and said : 
" The flowers of heaven are lovely in their rays, 
As are our favourite stars of earth, these pansies : 
When, in the night, I lie awake and happy, 
They gleam so kindly through the eglantine ! — 
Where did you learn that gloomy fancy, Edmund ? " 

Said Edmund : " In yon convent dwelt a Monk 
Who watched the stars, the night that I was born, 
And from their aspect prophesied of peril — 
Said he, < About his nineteenth year the boy 
Will meet great peril, while he dreams of bliss— 
His only safety will be in a cell ! ' 
And, Ursula, if you have seen me look 
Sorrowful when the stars of evening came, 
It was because I thought of those sad words." 

" Then think of them no more ! " said Ursula — 
" My father tells me better, truer things ; 
It needs no learning for a simple mind 
To read the meaning of yon gentle stars ; 
They bid us be at peace as they are now, 
And always were, and evermore will be ! " 

" Ah, Ursula, my father thinks not so : 

He dreads the stars, and makes me dread them too. 

My nineteenth year is come, and now, he says, 

My only safety will be in a cell, 

In yonder Convent. We must say farewell. 

Henceforth I must not linger in your garden : 

But when the stars look out, at eventide, 

Think of me, Ursula, and pray for me !" 

Then Ursula bowed down her head and wept, 

And Edmund press'd her hand and said " Farewell." 

In yonder Convent, Edmund pined away 

Till to the cell his mind seem'd reconciled. 

The Monks accounted him a pious youth ; 

For when he spoke of heaven's unfading joys, 

Of the reunion of dear friends above, 

Where no unfriendly star its chilling ray 

Shall cast o'er life, when love, repressed below, 

Took flight and exercise in paradise — 

They marked his glistening eye and glowing cheek; 

But none could find of all that eloquence 

The secret source — a thought of Ursula ! 

A thousand times he exorcised the thought — 

In vain — it came again, with every spring, 

With scents of flowers and with the sight of heaven ; 

Till, weary of the conflict with his heart, 

The Monk resigned his soul to gentleness : 

He turned to love the trees and flowers again, 

And left his books to sit beside the stream, 

And chronicle the changes, day by day, 

Wrought in the leaves, till Nature, cunningly, 

Stole on his heart, and, with the stream, flowed down 

His thoughts and feelings to the quiet home 

Where Ursula, amid her daily cares, 

Remembered him and never ceased to hope. 

Her dwelling was the true religious house 

Where angels, in their ministry, beheld 

The love that heals and consecrates the world 

Within the lowliness of woman shrined : 

There was the piety that keeps the earth 

Green, and the wilderness with roses decks : 

Whene'er her hands were lifted up in prayer, 

They brought down strength to do some good on earth. 



CONCLUSION 



135 



The Monks self-sheltered once within yon walls 
Are all forgotten in this valley now ; 
But, if within this dell it were allowed 
To bow in recollection of the grace 
Bestowed by heaven upon one happy soul, 
It would be at thy shrine, good Ursula! 

At last, a storm arose about the Monks : 
The rude world raged against these quiet men, 
And from their studious cloisters drove them forth 
And Edmund, one dull evening, found himself 
Homeless and friendless in the valley left, 
And pale and feeble, through the tedious strife 
Of Nature, with the habits of the cell. 

The streamlet rippled on — there seem'd to be 
A tone of invitation in its voice, 
As the poor Monk paced slowly on the bank, 
Till to the garden and the house he came 
Where dwelt in solitude true Ursula. 
In the gray eventide, as she was wont, 
She sat beside her window and look'd out 
Upon the valley, losing all her grief 
In the pure luxury of pious thought. 

Thus Edmund saw her. Now the flush of youth 
Had left her cheek, but, in its place, a light, 
Out-beaming from her mind, o'erspread her face 
With tranquil radiance, permanent as truth. 
She saw the stranger, doubted for a moment, 
Then, as she knew him, hastened to the door 
And led him in ; but not a word was said. 

And so ends Edmund's story. Life and truth 
Triumph' d o'er all the errors of the cell : 
Old fears and superstitions died away, 
And he would sit with Ursula, at eve, 
And look upon the stars, and in their beams 
Read a diviner meaning than of yore. 

And, many years, of this secluded dell 
Edmund and Ursula were guardian-saints. 



MARGARET AND THE STUDENT. 

Let mystic dreamers tell us — Can there be, 
Between the soul and earth a sympathy? 
I only tell a true and simple tale 
Of life and love, and death in yonder vale. 

There stands a solemn, gray, monastic tower, 
In ruins laid, by sacrilegious power, 
Where once the vesper chant or matin psalm, 
Gave deeper meaning to the valley's calm. 



The keeper of the woods, an old man gray, 
Has lived beside that tower from boyhood's day : 
He had a daughter, Margaret, and her face 
Seem'd moulded by the spirit of the place ; 

For there, as in a mirror, might be seen 
The softest beauty of that valley green, 
And yet, with melancholy shaded round, 
Breath'd from the old, monastic burial-ground. 

There came a southern youth, of fancy bright, 
And yet old ruins were his heart's delight, 
His summer-joys were rivers, hills, and trees — 
One cannot always study Sophocles. 



He knew how Homer's lordly periods roll, 
(Alas ! they cannot educate the soul) 
But life's deep reverence, love's true sanctity, 
Remained for him an untried mystery. 

And through the valley, with a painter's eye, 
He wandered 'neath the glowing summer sky, 
The cheerful river's chiming waterfalls 
Dispersed the gloom of Oxford's old gray walls. 

And with the vital feelings of his frame 
Blended the summer's sympathetic flame, 
The glossy woods, the sky's warm-glowing blue, 
Kindled a heart of which he nothing knew. 

He had not learned that every strong delight 
Is dangerous as dazzling in its might ; 
The dearest joys that through the bosom thrill 
Are fatal, uncontroll'd by stedfast will. 

Why does he tarry, at the close of day, 

Beside the cottage of the old man gray ? 

Who walks beside him through the garden there ? 

— 'Tis Margaret, happy as the summer air ! 

Too happy ! Oh too happy in that hour, 
When, seated with him by the ruin'd tower, 
She heard the words, " As long as summers shine, 
Dear fairy of this valley, I am thine ! " 

Youth ! dost thou love her ? never turn away 
To hide a blush, but let thy heart speak — " Yea ! 
And all the lore of yon monastic place 
Is less than I have learned from Margaret's face." 

Then thou dost love her ? thou hast found a rest, 

A home, a paradise, a sheltering breast, 

A purpose for thy life, a work to do, 

A human heart to keep and guard. Be true ! 

As, in old chivalry, the faithful knight 
Bore, in his bosom, through the thickest fight, 
His lady's gift to nerve his heart and arm, 
So be this love thy life's preserving charm ! 

Hush ! — Summer fled away : the falling leaf 
Found Margaret and her father in their grief; 
And from her fading eye and forehead pale 
A shadow seem'd to fall upon the vale. 

Did Nature, through the valley, feel the blow 
Struck at her bosom through her favourite child ? 

I have a poet's guess ; but this I know, 

That all the autumn days were sad and wild. 

The morning sky was often red, and tears 
Fell fast, at eve, among the wither'd leaves, 

And there were sighs all night, such as one hears 
When for her only child a widow grieves. 

" Spring will not come ! " said Margaret, as she lay 
Dying, — " I long to hear the wood-birds sing ! " — 

But not one word in anger would she say 

Of one who might have come and brought the Spring. 

And on the day she died you could not say — 
So softened and so gentle was the light — 

If Nature dreamed of winter pass'd away, 
Or of a coming summer warm and bright. 

There was a silence spread through woods and air, 
A waiting for the issue of a strife, 



136 



CONCLUSION. 



A preparation for some triumph fair 

To crown, at last, a loving, faithful life ! 

And so she died ! and on her hurial day 
The sky was dim ; but, at the closing rite, 

The sun shone out, drove every cloud away, 
And filled the quiet vale with evening fight ! 

We would not refuse to give the title of poetry 
to productions of a meditative and sentimental 
character ; but the world seems to think it has 
already had too many poems in that vein. The 
poet tells the results of a pensive reverie on man's 
mortality or any other general grievance : — " You 
might have been better employed ! " says the 
World. Or he tells of the sad contrast between his 
hopes and the world about him : — " Then tell us 
how to make our condition better ! " say the people. 

The true poetry that seems to be required in 
the present day, is that which, while remaining 
faithful to its own style and character, will unite 
itself with the interest of the times, and express 
the best and deepest feelings of the people. Life 
and literature should be united. 

Human life, viewed in the whole, is poetry ; the 
part, viewed in itself only, is prosaic. Thus, a 
poor labouring man is an object prosaical enough, 
while you think only of his actual circumstances, 
his relation to the Board of Guardians, &c, but 
let nature be around him, let it be remembered 
that he is a son of Adam in Paradise, that he is 
the brother of all the kings that sit upon the 
thrones of the earth — trace him to his origin — 
consider his whole destiny — think, there is a spirit 
under his rude garb — view him in the whole — and 
he becomes a poetical object — that is, one awaken- 
ing imagination and feeling. Even the meanest 
human life — why is it not poetical \ — because it 
accords not with your ideal standard. Well, 
consider it then in contrast with that standard, 
and now in its pathetic aspect, as a fall from 
"a high estate," it becomes poetical. History 
speaks of men as if they were the creatures of 
politics ; it explores not their true nature, it 
considers man apart from all the influences of 
nature : history is thus full of half-truths : — 
poetry tells the whole, and is true. The office, 
therefore, which we assign to the true poet is that 
he should be the interpreter and the illustrator 
of life, a companion to the historian, but doing 
more than the historian does. While the historian 
notices the bodies of events, the poet tells of the 
spirit that moves in them ; while the historian 
describes the outward life of man, the poet pene- 
trates into his inner life ; the historian records 
facts, the poet reveals feelings, thoughts, hopes 
and desires ; the historian portrays the actual 
man, the poet keeps in view the ideal man ; 
the historian tells us of what man has been ; the 
poet reminds us, either in his dreams of the past, 
or in his visions of the future, of what man can 
be : the true poet who fulfils such a duty is as 
necessary to the development and education of 
mankind as the historian. 

Poetry belongs to the people. There is a creed 
in the hearts of men, higher and better than any 
that has been realised in the past, and to promul- 
gate this faith is the vocation of the poet. Let 
him leave coteries, and proclaim truth permanent 
and universal. 



LIGHT FOR ALL. 

You cannot pay with money 

The million sons of toil — 
The sailor on the ocean, 

The peasant on the soil, 
The labourer in the quarry, 

The hewer of the coal ; 
Your money pays the hand, 

But it cannot pay the soul. 

You gaze on the cathedral, 

Whose turrets meet the sky ; 
Remember the foundations 

That in earth and darkness lie : 
For, were not those foundations 

So darkly resting there, 
Yon towers could never soar up 

So proudly in the air. 

The workshop must be crowded 

That the palace may be bright ; 
If the ploughman did not plough, 

Then the poet could not write. 
Then let every toil be hallow'd 

That man performs for man, 
And have its share of honour 

As part of one great plan. 

See, light darts down from heaven, 

And enters where it may ; 
The eyes of all earth's people 

Are cheered with one bright day. 
And let the mind's true sunshine 

Be spread o'er earth as free, 
And fill the souls of men 

As the waters fill the sea. 

The man who turns the soil 

Need not have an earthy mind ; 
The digger 'mid the coal 

Need not be in spirit blind : 
The mind can shed a light 

On each worthy labour done, 
As lowliest things are bright 

In the radiance of the sun. 

The tailor, ay, the cobbler, 

May lift their heads as men, — 
Better far than Alexander, 

Could he wake to life again, 
And think of all his bloodshed, 

(And all for nothing too !) 
And ask himself — " What made I 

As useful as a shoe ? " 

What cheers the musing student, 

The poet, the divine ? 
The thought that for his followers 

A brighter day will shine. 
Let every human labourer 

Enjoy the vision bright — 
Let the thought that comes from heaven 

Be spread like heaven's own light ! 

Ye men who hold the pen, 

Rise like a band inspired, 
And, poets, let your lyrics 

With hope for man be fired ; 
Till the earth becomes a temple, 

And every human heart 
Shall join in one great service, 

Each happy in his part. 



CONCLUSION. 



137 



AMONG THE COAL-MINES OF DURHAM. 

Upon the hills the wintry wind is sighing ; 

In the dark vale where flows the winding Wear, 
A hundred coal-fires burn 
Beside the black-mouth' d mines. 

And, through the snow, the sooty miners come 
Down to their toil in the black vaults, where lurk 

The gases that may burst 

Into blue, sulphurous flames. 

A sad, dark life ! yet labour has its joys — 
Pleasant the sight of heaven when work is done ! 

Pleasant the shining hut 

Where burns the constant fire ! 

But darker than the gloom 'mid seams of coal, 
More to be dreaded than the fatal damp, 

The night that chains the mind, 

The darkness of the soul ! 

'Tis sad to toil afar from yonder sun : 
But let the mind's true sun, Intelligence, 

Shed beauty, light and joy 

O'er every labourer's life ! 

The enlightened soul can pour a cheerful light 
Even through the mine — the unillumined man 

Walks, in the face of day,| 

Surrounded with a gloom. 

To break through this — to shed the light around 
Till every man shall feel himself a man 

And share the common joy — 

As one sun shines for all — 

This be our task ! — as thousands toil for one 
So one must toil for thousands. Even a song 

Can help the toiling hand 

And cheer the labourer's soul. 



THE POET'S TASK. 

A youthful Poet in his cell 
Amid unfruitful visions pined ; 

For nowhere would his visions dwell, 
But rose and vanish'd in his mind. 

Sweet music sounded o'er his head, 
But in the world it died away ; 

And all life's various colours fled, 
Dissolved in shadowy twilight gray. 

Oft, turning from the glowing page 
That told the joys of olden time, 

He mused on our degenerate age, 

Our dreary thoughts and dismal clime. 

" Go forth ! " — a voice above he heard — 
" Go forth, and tell the vision all ; 

And souls with love of beauty stirr'd, 
Like thine, shall answer to the call." 

Then forth he went and faithful liv'd 
Both to the world and to the lyre, 

And many souls the truth received, 
And many bosoms caught the fire. 



And, in dull rooms, where sick men lay, 
And in the dwellings of the poor, 

He saw the gleams of coming day, 
And hopeful tokens sweet and sure. 

" The world is like my harp," said he, 
" Untouch 'd, no music issues forth ; 

But men shall learn the mystery 
And wake to notes of joy the earth. 

" The poesy that died away 

And left me lonely in my cell, 

Here follows me from day to day, 
And shall for ever with me dwell. 

" Redeeming all the dreary past, 
With faith I take the lyre again, 

And light and beauty shall be cast 
Upon the souls and lives of men." 

So forth, in faith, the Poet went 
To utter truth and love around, 

And in the task his life-breath spent, 
And many faithful followers found. 

Then to his chosen friend he gave 

The harp that cheer'd him on his ways — 

" Breathe no lament above my grave ; 
But let me live in all your lays ! " 

LET NOT THE SUN GO DOWN UPON YOUR 
WRATH." 

The golden sun is going down, 
Or melting in the west away : — 

Where are the clouds that seem'd to frown 
So darkly on the rising day ? 

Molten is every gloomy fold 

In yonder sea of liquid gold. 

The winds, at morn so rude and hoarse, 
Make music for an angel's ear ; 

The sun, beclouded in his course, 

Beholds the heavens, at evening, clear ; 

And now doth with the tempest's wreck 

His glorious pavilion deck. 

Lord ! sure thy countenance is here ; 

Thy spirit all the vale informs : 
Whatever, in this inward sphei'e, 

Remains to tell of angry storms, 
Oh, let it melt away, and leave 
No cloud to darken life's calm eve ! 



ON THE LAST DAY OF AUTUMN. 

The year lies dying in this evening light : 
The Poet, musing in autumnal woods, 
Hears melancholy sighs 
Among the wither'd leaves. 

Not so ! — but, like a spirit glorified, 
The Angel of the Year departs ; lays down 
His robes once green in spring, 
Or bright with summer's blue ; 

And, having done his mission on the earth, 
Filling ten thousand vales with golden corn, 
Orchards with rosy fruit, 
And scattering flowers around, — 



138 CONCLUSION. 


He lingers, for a moment, in the west 


The eldest was a gentle maid 


With the declining sun, shed's over all 


And beautiful, but on her face 


A pleasant, farewell smile, 


There lay a melancholy shade 


And so returns to God. 


Of coming grief — a pensive grace — 




Alas ! it deepened into gloom — ■ 


THE THIRD THOUGHT THE BEST. 


Yon Cypress rises o'er her tomb. 


r. 


The second had a soaring mind, 


Through bright, delicious summer-hours 


A spirit that would live on high, 


The golden sun was shining 


Leaving all mortal grief behind 


On mossy banks and beds of flowers 


And finding quiet in the sky : 


Where, in the wood reclining, 


She raised her head in heavenly light 


I dream'd, while visions fill'd the air — 


Like yonder Poplar tall and bright. 


The elfin king and queen 




And all their folk, in raiment rare, 

Were dancing in the sheen : 
And then said I — " Afar from strife, 

Away from toil and care, 
Sure there must be a happy life 

Found here if anywhere : " — 
Then breathed a voice the greenwood through — 


But she, the youngest, deeply sigh'd 
And sorrowed for her sister's woes, 

And oft she sat, at eventide, 

Weeping, where yonder streamlet flows : 

See where she sat, with downcast face, 

A Weeping Willow marks the place. 


" That is not true!" 






" But yon tall Pine upon the height 


ii. 


Rocky and bleak — who tells its tale ? " 


Then came the winter long and drear, 


That was the cold and faithless knight 


And in my hut, alone, 


Who ruin brought to this still vale : — 


I sat and watch' d the fading year, 


He stands alone and unforgiven, 


And thus began to moan : — 


And splintered by a bolt from heaven ! 


" And this is life ! if blooms a flower 




The frost must cut it down ; 




Soon fades the beauteous summer hour 




At winter's coming frown. 


THE LADY AND THE RIVER. 


And this is life ! a dreary scene — 




Dead earth and sullen sky — 
Better had summer never been 
Than only bloom to die ! " — 
Then breathed a voice my casement through — 
"That is not true!" 


Softly and brightly a river was flowing, 
Shaded with willows and birches all green ; 

Flowers on its banks of all colours were growing, 
And gleam'd on the billows that rippled between. 
Flow, roll, beautiful river ! 


hi. 


Shaded with ivy there stood a lone tower 


But when the spring-time budded out, 


Close by the river, with birches around : 


Forth from my hut I went, 


Once 'twas the fortress of terrible power — 


And, solving many a gloomy doubt, 


Desolate love there a refuge had found. 


Thus uttered my intent : — 


Flow, roll, beautiful river ! 


" Yes, this is life ! a constant sky 




Shines all the clouds above — 


Gaily the river threw up a fond gleam, 


So lives, while signs and shadows die, 


Glanced from each wave through the casement 


An everlasting love ! 


a ray; 


I '11 live in love right faithfully 


Kindly the lady looked down on the stream, 


Through bright and gloomy hours : 


Sung to her lute, and still this was her lay :— 


The bright shall cheer my constancy, 


" Flow, roll, beautiful river ! " 


The dark shall try its powers." — 




Then breathed a voice all nature through — 


Down from the hill, in the far-away sky, 


" Ay, that is true ! " 


Hastened the billows and laughed in the breeze, 




Till they sunk to repose 'neath the lady's calm eye ; 


THE VALLEY OF THE SPELL. 


For all their delight was the lady to please. 


This is the Valley of the Spell, 


Flow, roll, beautiful river ! 


Without a pulse of human breath ; 
Yet here transfigured spirits dwell ; 
For life arises out of death, 




But all the blue summer the lady grew pale ; 
Sad was the river and dull was its sound ; 


And every tree within this vale 


Slowly it rippled along the lone vale, 


Had once a soul — so runs the tale. 


But nowhere the glance of the lady it found. 




Flow, roll, beautiful river ! 


Yon Oak, with broad o'ershadowing head — 




A father true and kind was he : 


She died — and the musical billows were mute, 


Around his strength was beauty spread ; 


A sigh long and heavy pass'd over the vale ; 


For his were lovely daughters three — 


Flowers, willows, and birches died down to the root; 


Of that bright family in the vale 


All night did the river, in solitude, wail. 


Five trees remain to tell the tale. 


Mourn, mourn, desolate river ! 



CONCLUSION. 



139 



THE LAND OF REST. 

Oh land of deep repose 

And solemn beauty ! how I long to be 
Where old monastic walls and gates inclose 

Green quietudes, and old serenity ; 

Where nothing breaks the summer's happy calm, 
The quiet of the deep, unmeasured blue, 

Save the slow, melting chords of some old psalm 
Heard the cathedral's painted windows through. 

Land of old tombs and monumental stones, 

Where, near the shrine, the saintly dead repose, 



And o'er their grassy graves the organ's tones 

Flow, morn and eve, with many a soothing close. 

Oh land of deep and true and quiet love, 

Where from the windows beauteous faces look, 

Where lovely forms in pleasant gardens move, 
Or sit and meditate in some green nook. 

Land through whose sky soft tones of music float — 
Where trumpet, fife, and rolling drum are mute, 

Where thousands join in psalms, and every note 
Is soft as the deep warble of the flute ; 

Where human life, like one harmonious psalm, 
Solemnly happy, through its changes flows, 

From childhood to the grave's eternal calm — 
I long for thee, oh land of deep repose. 



CHILDREN'S POETRY. 



In the minstrelsy of childhood, German Poetry 
is richer than our own. It would be well if our 
school-rooms more frequently echoed with songs 
(instead of the never-ending multiplication-table), 
pleasant little lyrics like those of which there are 
many in Germany — songs for all seasons and cir- 
cumstances of real life — for spring, summer, au- 
tumn, and winter, morning and evening, school- 
time and holidays — songs shedding rays of poetry 
on the lowliest occupations in which men can be 
engaged. 

"BEHOLD THE FOWLS OF THE AIR." 

Would you, free and happy, go 

Through a world of sorrow, 
You must learn of little birds, 

Tbeir wisdom you must borrow. 
See them hop, and fly, and sing, 

Careless, unrepining ; 
Sleeping 'mid the branches green 

Till the sun is shining. 

Every one enjoys the life 

God's goodness has imparted, 
Each contented in her nest, 

Blithe and happy-hearted. 
In their joy they do not heap 

Stores for future need, 
Contented if they find enough 

Their little ones to feed. 

If 'tis fair, they never fear 

To-morrow's cloudy sky ; — 
Storms may come, but rocks and trees 

A shelter will supply. 
Every day, for life and food 

To God their praises bringing — 
Singing to the grave they go, 

And breathe then last in singing. 



Jacobi. 



HONESTY. 



With honest heart go on your way, 
Down to your burial-sod, 



And never, for a moment, stray 
Beyond the path of God. 

Then, like a happy pilgrim, here, 

O'er pleasant meadows going, 
You '11 reach the bank, without a fear, 

Where death's chill stream is flowing. 

And every thing along your way 

In colours bright shall shine ; 
The water from the jug of clay 

Shall taste like costly wine ! 

Then cherish faith and honesty 

Down to your burial-clod, 
And never, for a moment, stray 

Beyond the path of God. 

Your sons and grandsons, to your tomb 
Shall come, their tears to shed ; 

And from their tears sweet flowers shall bloom 
Above your sleeping head ! 

Holty. 



THE APPLE-TREE. 

My host was wonderfully kind, 

Where I was late a guest ; 
His sign, the Golden Apple, swung 

Above my place of rest. 

Beneath the waving apple-tree, 

My dainty fare was spread, 
Of cooling fruit, with snowy pulp ; 

And then I went to bed. 

My bed was beautiful to see, 

So mossy, soft, and green ; 
And my kind host spread over me 

A leafy, shadowy screen. 

And then there came among the bough 

A blithesome company ; 
They chattered o'er their gay carouse, 

And sang right merrily. 



140 



CONCLUSION. 



And when I asked him what to pay, 
He nodded — nought he said — 

God bless the good tree every day 
From the tap-root to the head ! 



TJhland. 



LONGING FOR SPRING. 

Come, lovely May, and make 

Our trees and gardens green ; 
Beside the -silver stream 

Let the violets he seen. 
Oh, how I long to see 

The violets again, 
And walk, sweet May, with thee 

Upon the grassy plain ! 

True, winter has its pastimes, 

And pleasures to bestow : 

There is hearty fun and frolic 

In sledging on the snow ! 
Then, at eventide, at home, 

There are games to close the day- 
Card-houses to be built, 

And blind-man's-buff to play. 

But oh, I grieve for " Lotty ! " 

See, here she sits for hours, 
As if, poor girl, she listened 

For the coming of the flowers — 
In vain I try my playthings ; 

She will not stir a peg ; 
She sits upon her stool 

Like a hen upon an egg ! 

But when the birds are singing, 

And, on the grassy plain, 
The boys and girls are springing, 

She '11 come to life again ! 
And then my little hobby 

(He 's in the comer there) 
Shall canter in the garden, 

And snuff the pleasant air. 

When will the wind be softer ? 

"When will the fields be green ? 
Come, lovely May, we children 

Will hail you for our queen ! 
O come ! and with thee bringing 

A thousand violets blue ; 
The nightingale, loud-singing, 

And the bird that says, " Cuck-oo 



Jagek. 



CONTENTMENT. 

I am contented ! go, my song, 
And tell the wonder wide ; 
For many a king, with golden crown, 



Is not, with all his pride ; 
Or, if he is, so let him be, 
For he is only — just like me ! 

To do the right, and love the good, 

Is more than fame and gold ; 
It gives a comfort to the heart 

That never can be told. 
It makes me bold — I look around, 
And fear no man that treads the ground ! 

The treasures of the Great Mogul — 

The Sultan on his throne — 
The fame of him (what was his name ?) 

Who called the world his own ; 
Then looked upon the moon and pined, 
Stir only laughter in my mind. 

I am contented ! go, my song, 

And tell the wonder wide ; 
For many a king, with golden crown, 

Is not, with all his pride ; 
Or, if he is, so let him be, 
For he is only — just like me ! 

Claudius. 



MUSIC FOR THE DYING. 

In the darkly-curtained chamber, 
The lamp's flame glimmers low, 

And throws a trembling lustre 
On the old man's pallid brow. 

His children stand together, 

In silence, round his bed, 
And strive to dry their tears, 

But more will still be shed. 

They press each other's hand, 

Their anguish to conceal ; 
No human words can tell 

How sorrowful they feel ! 

But hark ! some blithe companions 
Come, singing, down the street : 

The tones come nearer, nearer, 
In concord full and sweet. 

The old man lifts his eyelids ; 

His soul is deeply stirr'd — 
He listens to the music, 

And catches every word. 

" My Son's songs they are singing ! " 

Says he, as life's strings sever ; 
Then down he lays his head, 

And shuts his eyes for ever. 

Gaudy. 



THE END. 




Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Feb. 2010 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 
(724)779-2111 



i IRRARY OF CONGRESS 

HHHHL 

024 363 825 2 



